réductions d’impôts
The recent news that French President Jacques Chirac is talking about cutting the corporate tax rate from 33% to 20% over five years and entertaining the notion of corporate rates eventually being cut to 10% is testament to the powerful effect that the free movement of labour and capital is having in Europe. Even if it is still only talk it is quite a profound shift of attitude given the traditionally strong socialist inclinations in France. It means that the incredible economic success in low tax Ireland has not gone unnoticed on the continent.
Hopefully the European Union is destined to survive and thrive as a free trade area with a common unit of account that never manages to acquire any form of powerful executive or significant centralised tax powers that the European socialists aspire to. The fiscal power of other central governments in other federal systems such as Australia and the United States has undermined the economic potential that such unions can offer and the Euroskeptics are right to resist excessive political integration in that direction.
In its current configuration the European Union is a powerful and positive force for economic reform in Europe. Tax competition between nations is a healthy process and is fascilitated by the free movement of labour and capital.
Hopefully Australia will move to keep up with the pack in terms of creating a low tax environment conducive to the creation of general prosperity and a strong society. And the current policy of easy worker mobility between Australia and New Zealand should be expanded through negotiations with other suitable economic regions including the European Union.
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Jeez, that’s humiliating. We’d end up with a higher corporate tax rate than the French.
I think its impossible in the short term — the French government was already borrowing at about 3% of GDP (the EU limit) last time I looked, so if they lose further revenue it will push them over 3%. The only way they could solve the problem is to cut spending, which doesn’t seem likely to me.
When has a cut in the tax rate ever lead to an overall decline in tax revenue?
“In its current configuration the European Union is a powerful and positive force for economic reform in Europe”
Ok yea? Name three things Brussels has done to deregulate the economies. I’m not talking about EU standardization either. Three things they have done.
Look Chirac is talking shit. He’s out in a few months and now he is talking about lowering taxes. This from a socialist cretin who has had many chances of doing so after 14 years in power.
I have a bridge to sell you, Terje, it’s in Sydeny and has a greet views.
What’s with this lovefest for the EU you have anyway. It’s unhealthy and unwise. The EU commission is the new soviet union. The only thing they haven’t done is outlaw personal property but they’ll eventually get there.
“When has a cut in the tax rate ever lead to an overall decline in tax revenue?”
When tax cuts are not met with cuts in spending. You need to look at real dollars as a base before you can make that statement. Reagan’s tax cuts were a great thing, however they were not matched with spending cuts. Inflation essentially masked the fact that inflatin took care of tax receipts.
These are good signs at least, dialogue on taxation is the first step. The French did try some labour market reforms, but the French flare for rioting came to the fore instead. It is tragic that the very people who’d benefit most from labour market and taxation reform are the ones most violently opposed to it, the thousands of over-educated French students and the thousands of unemployed French-Algerian banlieue residents, who all want the social welfare, guaranteed pensions and lifetime employment that their parents enjoyed.
Ireland is a remarkable example, however they have been cautioned by Brussels over their low taxation policies. There is a conundrum for libertarians though with respects to Ireland, much of their success is attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the state’s spending on education.
“There is a conundrum for libertarians though with respects to Ireland, much of their success is attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the state’s spending on education.”
Not sure Brendon. If they had maintained the tax rate at high levels in the 80′s Ireland would be exporting unemployed grads to the US east coast.
I never said that I though the people in Bussels were pro-liberty or pro-free market. A lot of them probably are not. A lot of them are probably itching to implement a pan European socialist utopia. There is no lack of evidence to suggest that this is their primary instinct. However so long as the individual nation states resist the call to centralise fiscal authority in Brussels the EU is a powerful force for the reform of national economies at a national level by national governments. The EU being the system of open borders, common currency, free movement of labour and capital, mutual recognition of eachothers citizens and corporations, basic rights to property, democratic national governments etc. All of these things are part of the EU. Brussels is also part of the EU but it is the bit that is least necessary and should not get any significant funding or fiscal power.
I think that the European Court of Justice is arguably a worthy institution but it is not in Brussels.
Chirac is talking sence for probably the first time in his life. He is a dominant force in French politics and the fact that he is saying it means that it will be seen as reasonable for others to say it. You are right that rhetoric and execution are different but the rhetoric is still encouraging.
From memory the way a nation joined the soviet union was by being invaded. The EU is an institution that countries are queueing up to join voluntarily. That distinction straight off should tell you something.
You are simply wrong to say that the Reagan tax cuts (ie top tax rate down from 70% to 28%) lead to a decline in overall tax revenue? Not according to any reasonable analysis I have seen. Under the “Criticism of Reaganomics” section in the Reaganomics article at Wikipedia the worst that they can say about the Reagan tax cuts is that revenue didn’t grow much:-
“Specifically, the analysis calculated that the average annual growth rate of real income-tax receipts per working-age person was 0.2% from 1981 to 1990 and a much higher 3.1% from 1990 to 2001″
The best that can be said in favour of your thesis is that tax revenues did not grow a lot. However that does not make the Reagan example an answer to my question. My question was when have overall tax revenues ever declined following a cut in the tax rate. I have never seen a tangible documented example. Of course I accept the theoretically possibility that it may one day happen.
If they had maintained the tax rate at high levels in the 80’s Ireland would be exporting unemployed grads to the US east coast.
Ireland doesn’t have a history of high taxation, just the opposite.
“For 50 years, Ireland has benefited from low taxation, both in absolute levels of tax and particularly in the rates applied to business profits.”
Perhaps the involvement of the state in accelerating development of the education sector can be excused and that a richer Ireland may move towards more private funding, however there does seem to be a heavy state hand involved in science and education in the Celtic Tiger.
Ireland has benefited prodigiously from its historical links with the US and Britain, and has opened itself to the EU’s free trade. Many US firms feel comfortable in Ireland because of the shared language (not to mention the immigrant links), although this is only made apparent through the competitive taxation schemes Ireland operate and their openness to foreign investment. Irelands comparitive advantages are many.
For some reason my link above did not work:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/WorldwideFreedom/bg1945.cfm
Thanks for the link. I found this statement revealing:-
As a lifestyle choice, Ireland still has very few comparitive advantages and most of what passes as economic growth is wrong, very wrong. For example:
1. If you order a falafel or a kebab in Dublin in 2007 it will cost you approximately twice what is costs in Sydney or Melbourne. The ingredients will also be less fresh, it will probably be smaller and it will not taste as good. If you dont like it you will not have as many options to try other types of cuisine as Sydney or Melbourne. It will probably be raining. The architecture will not be pleasant to look at as you eat. When you leave the place of purchase people will brush past you on the street in an unfriendly manner, and the minority of people who are smiling instead of frowning will be drunken tourists.
2. RyanAir who are touted as a local success story, have crushed a few monopolies but are fundamentally wrong in that their business depends on massive carbon emissions. They knew they were wrong before they started out but they continued anyway. How do they know more than the world’s scienctific community? They dont, they are narrow minded idiots and their hate for musicians is evident in the way they treat instruments in transit.
At least they have not relied on North Sea Oil to support their whole economy like Norway (very wrong). 1 in 7 Norwegians have visited Thailand, that just about says it all.
What’s wrong with visiting Thailand?
I don’t think that expensive kebabs or carbon emitting airoplanes shows that Ireland’s lifestyle is poor or economic growth is “wrong”.
Historically Ireland has experienced an exodus of people, however there has been a complete reversal of that trend. If the lifestyle in Ireland is inferior then why are so many people moving there?
JH:
Thailand is a military dictatorship, the opposite of liberty. The previous democracy was enforced with brutal suppression of workers and summary execution of small time “drug dealers” in poor areas.
Norwegian oil magnates destroy the jungle and build fossil fuel powered estates of three story viking longhouses with Thai ornaments, whilst the builders live underneath cardboard in the mud at the foot of the hill.
Sex tourism contributes to the spread of AIDS and family breakdown in the region. Children die terrible deaths in orphanages before they can even go to school becuase fat Gunnar from Telemark paid extra out his carbon emitting cash not to wear a condom.
TP: The world’s population is expanding and the EU’s population is expanding by huge percentages every time a new country “joins”. In the case of Latvia, joining means losing their young labour force, having missile bases installed on the Eastern border, and turning their Russian speaking population from citizens into gangsters without passports.
Jobs are scarce in some parts of the EU (eg Wroclaw or Gothenburg) due to over reliance on costly imported fossil fuels and the seizures on the economy and poor settlement planning that this lack of liberty causes. For closed minded people the solution may be a few Euro at the end of budget flight to Ireland.
Ireland is a drop in the Atlantic Ocean in terms of population, as are most of the so called wealthy countries in Europe, and any so called miracle is therefore also small.
A lot of people are also moving to the UK and Australia, they should be warned that the lifestyle is so bad that they may consider becoming suicide bombers as a way out.
They need to take a crash course taught by Catallaxy in being racially insulted by people they blog and socialise as a citizenship test.
Parkos,
We should be grateful for small miracles. However Ireland is not a miracle, it is a product of public policy and hard working citizens.
How do you explain the fact that countries queue up for years to join the EU?
Regards,
Terje.
p.s. Are you taking the micky?
Norway doesnt want to join, neither does Switzerland.. They would be forced to cough up and they luuurve money so it will not happen.
Germany’s recent surge in exports, is literally driven by exporting volkswagens to China.
Beijing bathes in pollution and Mongolian street urchins cough their lungs up, so that Germans can do what they have been doing for more than a century rather than updating their economy. They are basically exporting the environmental crisis as a way of dealing with it. There are a few Renaults in Shanghai too.
And so it goes like a copperbolt into ze trousers.
There is a large smog cloud over rural and developing India and China, because of an absence of cars and a reliance on horse and oxen power. Methane and other emissions are higher in these places.
They are exporting cleaner technology.
I assume parkos is either “taking the micky” (as Terje said) or just trolling. Either way I should probably ignore him/her. But I will say a few things…
Lots of places are dictatorships, but that doesn’t mean we should never visit them. There is nothing wrong with decorating your house with Thai ornaments. The sex industry in Thailand (as with other s/e asian countries) is primary for the locals and sex workers catering to tourists are treated better, paid better and have better health that the local-only girls.
It was neither the Norwegians nor any other evil capitalist that caused Thailand to be poorer than the west… but they are richer now than they ever have been, are getting richer and foreign investment is helping.
Cashed up Norweigans with AIDS hey? Are you suggesting these people came about due to crude oil?
Probably due to visiting Pnomh Penh and multiple std related sores before arriving in Thailand. Norgs are just over-represented due to the their wealth and associated leisure time. Could be Germans, Brits, Aussies, Koreans or local men just the same.
I am alerting to people to the problem of the trolls ie the oversized ugly oil rich jungle destroyers of scandic reality (not mythology) rather than trolling of an evening.
The western influence of increased meat eating in the diet of Asia is producing more methane, and other problems like the toxic yellow dust cloud from Mongolia that envelopes Korea every year in spring.
Bring back the Beijing bicycle.. Its a lot cheaper when you buy them there and ship them or ride them back to Oz.
Better double the dose Parkos. The pills don’t seem to be working.
Neurosyph was the reason Batman founded Melbourne, it is the best thing on a cool evening whilst watching global warming to spice up our lives. I will remain unmedicated in the quest for inspiration and allow the syph to fester.
I would advise you to do the same gentlemen as you have smaller cranial capacities, and I can sense this at up to 20,000 parsecs into the next galaxy.
Good point. At least we now know that you are taking the micky. Or at least 50% of what you are saying involves taking the micky.
F%#$ off Parkos. You offer nothing except new age clap trap. Go back to leftwrites and stay there.
They said the same thing at leftwrites JC, so I am headed over to your place to help you set your blog, which will really launch your career in the Country Women’s Association.
Guys, blame prohibition for this recent Parkos infestation. The police have managed to frustrate a fresh supply of heroin in Melbourne so Parkos is concious again.
Sorry to disappoint your triad buddies/backers Jason but the government has its own supply in the form of a poppy farm in Tassie. Apart from that, Afghanistan is back online.
I have helped the police minister’s children with their rehab, so he might pick you up and take you to Gitmo as a favour.
Me, I never touch the stuff, it screws with the endorphin release I experience from hatha yoga and freediving.
word of advice, parkos. you’re not supposed to land on your head when you go freediving.
and why are you doing yoga?you’re already a natural when it comes to tying yourself in knots.
A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.