Battling Hurricanes and Fiscal Imperialism

I'm at the Denver Airport, waiting to fly to Phoenix and then on to Los Cabos, Mexico. But I'm not going for sun and fun. In part, this is because Los Cabos is facing a hurricane watch. But the main reason is that I'm going to Mexico to help low-tax jurisdictions fight against fiscal imperialism. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an international bureaucracy based in (where else) Paris, is persecuting so-called tax havens because they are attracting jobs and investment from high-tax welfare states such as France and Germany. This fight has been going on for about 10 years, and we've done a fairly decent job of thwarting the bureaucrats (who, by the way, get tax-free salaries). But the election of Obama has given the OECD some momentum. This raises the risk that the bureaucrats will succeed in imposing a global tax cartel - sort of an "OPEC for politicians."

Like most government entities, the OECD does not believe in open and fair discussion. The bureaucrats already have used their leverage to kick our delegation out of the main conference hotel (though delegation is probably an overstatement since it is just me and Andy Quinlan of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

Maybe the huuricane will thwart the OECD's pernicious plans to impose bad tax policy on free-market jurisdictions. If not, keep your fingers crossed that Andy and I somehow can throw sand in the gears and defend tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy.