I took my first trip to Paraguay last week, courtesy of the good folks at Fundacion Libertad. I gave a couple of speeches (the photo below is from a speech to business leaders in the Parliament), did a few interviews, and met with a bunch of policy makers, including the Vice President. The purpose of the trip, at least I think, was to help build pressure to block an income tax from being implemented. Paraguay is not a free-market paradise, but the fiscal burden of government is low and there is a serious debate in the nation about whether to be one of the few places in the world without the plague of an income tax.
As far as I can tell (given my total lack of foreign-language skills), the trip was successful. The Paraguayan equivalent of the House of Representatives voted to suspend the tax, joining their colleagues from the Paraguyan Senate in voting against the income tax.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to permanently kill the tax. As such, I’ll definitely have to return for another visit – especially when the weather is cold in Washington.
[…] you embarrass yourself by asserting that, say, Denmark is richer than Paraguay because of statism, you need to look at the data. Denmark has a bigger welfare state than Paraguay, […]
[…] prosperous with bad tax policy so long as it has free-market policies in other areas. It’s also possible for a nation with a good tax system to be poor and stagnant if other economic policies are statist and […]
[…] with bad tax policy so long as it has free-market policies in other areas. It’s also possible for a nation with a good tax system to be poor and stagnant if other economic policies are statist and […]