Tag Archives : international taxation
According to Washington Post Exposé, People Who Utilize Tax Havens Are Far More Honest than Politicians
Using data stolen from service providers in the Cook Islands and the British Virgin Islands, the Washington Post published a supposed exposé of Americans who do business in so-called tax havens. Since I’m the self-appointed defender of low-tax jurisdictions in Washington, this caught my attention. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t joking when he warned that “eternal vigilance […]
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Does Your Family Have an Extra $5,500 to Pay the Higher Energy Taxes Proposed by the Bureaucrats at the IMF (Who Get Tax-Free Salaries)?
If asked to name my least-favorite international bureaucracy, the easy answer would be the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. After all, it was only a few days ago that I outlined different ways that the Paris-based bureaucracy is seeking to expand statism and reduce freedom around the world. I’m particularly nauseated by the OECD’s […]
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Targeting Multinationals, the OECD Launches New Scheme to Boost the Tax Burden on Business
I’ve been very critical of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most recently, I criticized the Paris-based bureaucracy for making the rather remarkable assertion that a value-added tax would boost growth and employment. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The OECD has allied itself with the nutjobs from the so-called Occupy movement […]
read more...Grilled about Cayman Investments, Jack Lew Chooses the I’m-a-Moron Defense
Every so often, you get a “teaching moment” in Washington, and we now have an excellent opportunity to educate lawmakers about the “offshore” world because President Obama’s nominee to be Treasury Secretary has been caught with his hand in the tax haven cookie jar. Mr. Lew not only invested some of his own money in […]
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A Journalist’s First-Hand Report on the Corrupt Secrecy of an International Bureaucracy
As a taxpayer, I’m not a big fan of international bureaucracies. They consume a lot of money, pay themselves extravagant (and tax-free!) salaries, and generally promote statist policies. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a prime example. Originally created for benign purposes such as gathering statistics, it now is a bloated bureaucracy […]
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Another Push for Global Taxation from the United Nations
I spoke at the United Nations back in May, explaining that more government was the wrong way to help the global economy. But I guess I’m not very persuasive. The bureaucrats have just released a new report entitled, “In Search of New Development Finance.” As you can probably guess, what they’re really searching for is […]
read more...Just as “Fair Trade” Means Protectionism for the Benefit of Special Interests, “Fair Tax Competition” Means Tax Harmonization for the Benefit of Politicians
Very few people are willing to admit that they favor protectionism. After all, who wants to embrace a policy associated with the Great Depression? But people sometimes say “I want free trade so long as it’s fair trade.” In most cases, they’re simply protectionists who are too clever to admit their true agenda There’s a […]
read more...Study from German Economists Shows that Tax Competition and Fiscal Decentralization Limit Income Redistribution
If we want to avoid the kind of Greek-style fiscal collapse implied by this BIS and OECD data, we need some external force to limit the tendency of politicians to over-tax and over-spend. That’s why I’m a big advocate of tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy (read Pierre Bessard and Allister Heath to understand […]
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America’s Corporate Tax Rate is So Punitive that Companies Are Even Moving to Welfare States Like the U.K. to Be More Competitive
I was a bit surprised couple of years ago to read that an American company re-located to Canada to benefit from better tax policy. But I wasn’t totally shocked by the news because Canada has been lowering tax rates, reducing the burden of government spending, and taking other steps to make its economy more competitive. […]
read more...A Primer on the Flat Tax and Fundamental Tax Reform
In previous posts, I put together tutorials on the Laffer Curve, tax competition, and the economics of government spending. Today, we’re going to look at the issue of tax reform. The focus will be the flat tax, but this analysis applies equally to national sales tax systems such as the Fair Tax. There are three […]
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