by Dan Mitchell | Jun 10, 2010 | Blogs, Europe, Flat Tax, Tax Competition, Taxation
I gave a speech in Hungary about two weeks ago and now the government has announced a big step in the direction of better fiscal policy. According to Reuters, “Hungary’s new government plans to introduce a flat personal income tax of 16 percent from 2011,...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 9, 2010 | Blogs, Europe, Tax Competition
This story from Business Week warmed my heart. Switzerland’s cantons are competing to create better tax policy, and this is attracting companies seeking to escape the kleptocracies elsewhere in Europe. This shows the value of tax competition (imagine how bad...
by Dan Mitchell | May 13, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Taxation, Uncategorized
Okay, the title of this post is an absurd exaggeration, but I am not optimistic about the future of the United Kingdom. Government spending has exploded over the last ten-plus years (the largest expansion in the burden of government spending among developed nations),...
by Dan Mitchell | May 6, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Tax Competition, Taxation, Uncategorized
The New York Times has an article describing widespread tax evasion in Greece, along with an implication that the country’s fiscal crisis is largely the result of unpaid taxes and could be mostly solved if taxpayers were more obedient to the state. This is an...
by Dan Mitchell | May 2, 2010 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Tax Harmonization, Taxation, Uncategorized
Price fixing is illegal in the private sector, but unfortunately there are no rules against schemes by politicians to create oligopolies in order to prop up bad government policy. The latest example comes from the bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund, who...
