WTA Blog

“The left-wing hullabaloo is wrong, inequality hasn’t changed in 20 years”, said Jordan Williams, Executive Director of the Taxpayers’ Union, responding to new research findings by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.

In the wake of the 2017 UK general election, much commentary has focused on the impact public spending cuts had on the result. Less attention has been paid to assessing by how much public spending has actually been reduced.

On June 13th Finland celebrated its Tax Freedom Day.

New Zealand Taxpayers Union released a new report approaching the tax freedom day concept from a different perspective.

Unknown only three years ago, Emmanuel Macron ascended to the presidency of the French Republic without the support of a single traditional political party. An advisor and later a government minister to a very unpopular President, not only he benefited from circumstances that expelled his main rivals from the race, but he also seduced the French people with the charm of his smile and youth. What got him elected, then, was a real “tour de magie”, a magic trick.

Taxes on labour income for the average worker across the OECD continued to decrease for the third consecutive year during 2016, dropping to 36% of labour costs, according to a new OECD report.

The US-based National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) completed a tax complexity project concluding “…the total economic value of compliance burden of the Tax Code can be valued at $262.632 billion.”

The Slovak-based Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS) created and launched in 2016 a Bureaucracy Index. Its goal is to establish a comprehensive list and subsequent cost of bureaucratic burden in a national economy.

April – June 2017

Dear WTA Members, Observers, and Friends:
I wanted to wait until after our Regional Taxpayers Forum in Zagreb before sending this quarter’s Update so it is a month late, but we’ll get back on track in July.

Gia Jandieri, Vice-President of the New Economic School – Georgia, is asking the international delegates to sign a coalition letter in favor of maintaining the Economic Liberty Act untouched.