WTA Blog

The European Resource Bank held its 2017 meeting in April in Podgorica, Montenegro. Congratulations to Maryan Zablotskyy of the WTA member Ukrainian Economic Freedoms Foundation who won this year’s Dragon’s Den competition for his Wikipermit project which tracks government permits.

Tax Freedom Day is the day when a nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year. It is a useful way of representing how large a nation’s tax burden is compared to the size of its economy.

On occasion of World Intellectual Property Rights Day April 26th, the Property Rights Alliance(PRA) penned a letter signed by 54 global partners (including many WTA members).

Following the success slightly over a year ago of the satirical “Coalition of Obsolete Industries” campaign going internationally viral, The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance has produced a sequel!

The sequel targets a proposal by the Victorian State Government to impose a $2 tax on all rides to fund a bailout of the taxi industry followed by the introduction of Uber and features people in costume calling for new taxes to bail out town criers, the telegram industry, horseshoe makers etc. A tax on tires to bail out the horseshoe makers etc.

Hans Rosling was a worldwide celebrity because of his enthusiasm, ways of making complicated questions understandable, constantly showing how the world is improving in the face of pessimism. He was encouraging people, lifting them to new levels of understanding, hope and involvement. He passed away too early and will be missed by the many of us who believe in a better future, a humane world. A professor of the old tree, demanding, teaching but living in the new world with constant hope for the future. You can learn from him and share his heritage on his website:  http://www.gapminder.org/.

Congratulations to Nikolay Popov, president of the Bulgarian Taxpayers Union, who led the celebration of its 25th Anniversary in Sofia, Bulgaria this Autumn.

January-March 2017

Dear WTA Members, Observers, and Friends:

Happy New Year! Hope this finds you well, rested, and ready for 2017.

Congratulations to Raymond Ho from Hong Kong’s Momentum 107 for another successful year! See their anniversary gala pictures here.

Autumn 2016
WTA members, observers and friends,

It was my great pleasure to attend the Liberty Forum put on by Atlas Network in Miami in September where I met with new UK TaxPayers Alliance Chief Executive John O’Connell; Marusa Pozvek of the Slovenia Taxpayers; Krunoslav Saric from Lipa in Croatia; Lorenzo Montanari from Americans for Tax Reform; Tim Andrews of Australian Taxpayers Alliance and for the first time Jose Beteta of Respect for Taxpayershttp://respeto.pe/ from Peru. Much work needs to be done developing taxpayer groups in central and South America so it was of particular interest to meet Jose. Congratulations to all of you on the great work you are doing!

The OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has a great deal of statistics and reports available.