Members’ Area

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.

The Tax Foundation has released the third annual International Tax Competitiveness Index. Once again, the United States ranks among the bottom 5 countries with the 5th least competitive tax system in the OECD. Only Greece, Portugal, Italy, and France have less competitive tax codes. On the other end of the spectrum, Estonia takes the number one spot once again, with New Zealand and Latvia having the second and third most competitive tax systems, respectively.

Petition from CitizenGO and the Austrian Economics Center:

The European Commission recently accused Ireland of giving “illegal tax benefits” to Apple. Now, they want Ireland to retroactively charge €13 billion to Apple due to this “unfair” treatment.

This ruling by the European Commission is extremely dangerous. Such an overreach by the EU’s antitrust regulator puts Ireland’s national sovereignty—and the sovereignty of all EU nations—under threat.

According to Greek and Roman mythology, Saturn devoured his own sons. The Commission runs the risk of doing something similar to European nations by taking away their national sovereignty and their opportunity to succeed economically.

Ireland’s policy towards Apple was an intelligent use of tax competition and globalization. Threatening foreign direct investment in Ireland would condemn the country to stagnation and poverty.

We believe that the European Commission should overturn this ruling and immediately abandon their dangerous and damaging tax harmonization policy. The Commission should respect the national sovereignty and economic freedom of all European nations.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://www.citizengo.org/en/signit/37265/view

Sweden might not have much to teach other countries about tax policy. The tax-to-GDP-ratio of 42.8 percent (2013) exceeds the OECD average by nearly 9 percentage points. Our marginal tax rate on labor income is the world’s highest, and the capital gains tax is almost twice as high as the average in the EU, OECD and the BRIC countries. That being said, the developments from the year 2000 until today might still be interesting even for foreign readers.