WTA Blog

The Respect for Taxpayers Day becomes an official commemorative day in Lithuania to be celebrated on the 11th of May. A recently adopted law is a result of a petition submitted by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute.

December has been a busy month for Korea Taxpayers’ Association – and a headache for lawmakers – as Kim Suntaek (KTA’s president) continued the campaign against excessive tax benefits to religious leaders.

In October of 2017, the Spanish Taxpayers Union (UC) launched the first edition of its Regional Tax Competitiveness Index. This report inspired by the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index measures the country’s seventeen regional fiscal systems by analyzing 64 indicators and produces a ranking to show how each of them performs in comparison with the rest.

Hampered by high marginal tax rates and complex business tax rules, the United States again ranks towards the bottom of the pack on our 2017 International Tax Competitiveness Index, placing 30 out of 35 OECD countries.

Dear WTA Members, Observers, and Friends:

Events:

Regional Taxpayers Forum Bangkok Thailand, December 8-10, 2017

The second WTA-sponsored Regional Taxpayers Forum of 2017 will take place in Bangkok Thailand, December 8-10. The World Taxpayers Associations along with Asia-Pacific Taxpayers Union are pleased to invite Asian and international delegates to join us in an exchange of ideas and best practices to advance the cause of limited and accountable government.

Nearly every basic necessity in Britain – housing, food, transport, energy – is made more expensive by government intervention and taxation. So-called “compassionate” policies proposed by politicians are actually having the opposite effect, and making life worse for all of us.

The Taxpayers Association of Ukraine in collaboration with the Taxpayers Association of Europe is inviting taxpayers groups, and not only, to join them in Kiev for the European conference: “The Future of Europe”.

This report contains a detailed statistical and economic analysis of the tax systems of the 28 Member States of the European Union, plus Iceland and Norway which are members of the European Economic Area. In addition to the analysis of Europe-wide trends, the report includes country chapters covering the 28 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway.

If there is a universal law of the free market, it must be the principle of competition, notably with regards to prices. Our walls, our screens, our media [JE NE COMPRENDS PAS] remind us of this every single day. Without this competition, technical progress would be of no benefit to consumers. Herein lies the crucial flaw of state-directed economies. The market always knows better than a commission of super technocrats what must be the correct price of a pair of shoelaces.

Global political leaders can’t seem to agree on much these days, except perhaps for one thing: cracking down on corporate tax avoidance. Over the past few months, more than 100 countries have signed on to the Inclusive Framework sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which sets common rules for addressing base erosion and profit shifting, commonly known as BEPS.