Posted on 01/22/2012 12:31:34 PM PST by Olog-hai
BRUSSELSA six-point plan drafted by France and Germany has suggested corporate tax "coordination," an EU financial transactions tax and the redeployment of EU funds in troubled countries as ways to spur growth and jobs.
Following Standard & Poor's recent downgrade of nine euro-countries, including France, in which the ratings agency warned that austerity and budget cuts are not the way out of recession, Paris and Berlin have teamed up once more and drafted a six-page paper called "Ways out of the crisisstrengthen growth now!"
The paperseen by EUobserveris supposed to be discussed at the EU summits on 30 January and 1-2 March, the latter being a meeting especially dedicated to growth and jobs.
The financial transactions taxa pet project of French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of his re-election bid in Aprilfeatures among the six proposals under "efforts to reinforce the framework of financial market." On Monday, hours before meeting their colleagues from the other 25 member states in Brussels, the German and French finance ministers will gather in Paris to thrash out a common position on the so-called Tobin tax, named after the Nobel prize laureate James Tobin who initially conceived it.
Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Malta and the Czech Republic oppose the tax, saying it is counterproductive in the absence of a global deal that would stop firms from fleeing to tax havens in Switzerland or the Caribbean.
Even more controversial are plans for "tax coordination" and another Franco-German proposal to be put forward by end of February on the "convergence of their corporate tax."
"European institutions and member states should accelerate the process of tax coordination in order to foster growth, removing obstacles to the functioning of the single market and preventing tax abuse and harmful tax practices," the paper says.
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
And they laughed, and they laughed, and they laughed some more. And then they went out and met the press.
All of the western European nations’ economic publications have included unreasonable tax hikes in their calls for so-called austerity.
Thanks Olog-hai.
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