Resisting the Global Tax Schemes of International Bureaucracies

For those who followed my adventures at the OECD conference in Mexico, you have some idea of the dangers posed by bureaucrats trying to create a global tax cartel. For further information, I have an article in the latest issue of Offshore Investment. The whole article is worth reading, but the concluding paragraph is a good summary:

Politicians from high-tax nations – and the international bureaucracies that represent those governments – will continuously push schemes to restrict tax competition, and they have the advantages of time and (other people’s) money on their side. Although tax competition has been a liberalising force throughout the world, encouraging governments to lower tax rates, even leading a number of jurisdictions to adopt simple and fair flat tax systems, this liberalising process is being threatened by a number of policies mostly stemming from Europe. This is bad for low-tax jurisdictions and bad for taxpayers (especially those from high-tax nations). Tax harmonisation means higher tax rates and a more onerous burden of government. This inevitably translates into slower economic growth and stagnating living standards.

The article was co-authored by my summer intern, Hiwa Alaghebandian, who is back in school at William & Mary. Now, I have an intern from the utterly despicable University of Florida (which, sadly, has dominated my beloved Georgia Bulldogs in recent years). As you can see from this photo from a post-softball celebration, I've obviously traded down.