More Corporate Tax Cutting in Europe while America Lags

By every possible metric, one would expect corporate tax rates to be higher in Europe. The burden of government spending is higher across the Atlantic, so that presumably would lead to pressure for a higher corporate tax rate. The affinity for class warfare and anti-business policies is more pronounced in Europe, so that should mean more punitive policies in the Old World.

Yet the corporate tax rate is Europe has now dropped, on average, to less than 25 percent, and the American corporate tax remains at more than 39 percent (including the average of state tax burdens). The latest development in Europe, according to Tax-news.com, is that the Netherlands is reducing its rate to 25 percent.

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager has unveiled key details of the country’s 2011 tax plan, containing a number of fiscal measures designed to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation… The 2011 tax plan includes plans to reduce corporation tax in 2011 to 25%. The government also plans to make permanent the reduced rate 20% corporate tax rate on the first EUR200,000 in profit, announced last year and retroactive to 2008. In addition, companies will significantly benefit from the extension by one year of the temporary three-year loss carry-back facility (previously losses could be carried back for just one year) as well as the extension of the temporary accelerated depreciation scheme, which allows certain capital assets to be depreciated at 50% per year, to investments made in 2011 as well as those made in 2009 and 2010.

So why is Europe moving in the right direction on this issue and America lagging? The simple (and accurate) answer is tax competition. Governments are lowering tax rates because politicians think that is their only option if they want to attract jobs and investment. Europe’s economies are so interconnected and cross-border mobility of jobs and investment is so large that politicians are being forced to do the right thing, even though all their normal impulses are the opposite. This video explains, followed by a video showing why corporate tax rates should be lower.

Read Full Post »

Greetings from Australia

Blogging will be at irregular hours for the next week. I am in Sydney for the Mont Pelerin Society conference. The MPS was founded in 1947 by Friedrich Hayek, “…to facilitate an exchange of ideas between like-minded scholars in the hope of strengthening the principles and practice of a free society and to study the workings, virtues, and defects of market-oriented economic systems.” Home to several Nobel laureates, the MPS is an oasis of freedom-loving individuals in a world that seems to reward statism and conformity. Belonging to this organization is one of the great honors of my life.

And perhaps I will have to travel overseas more often. When I landed in Sydney, I discovered that order had been restored to the universe. By that, I mean that the beloved Bulldogs had thrashed the Tennessee Volunteers 41-14.

Read Full Post »