The Market Center Blog

Cordially Invites You To a November 14th Seminar

Should American Taxpayers Fund Pro-Tax Increase Policies at the UN and OECD?

Featuring

Senator James Inhofe
Oklahoma

With remarks by

Frank J. Gaffney
Center for Security Policy

Daniel J. Mitchell
The Heritage Foundation

Thanks to the increased mobility of labor and capital, governments have much less leeway to impose bad tax policy. Indeed, most governments are now lowering tax rates. When Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher implemented pro-growth tax reforms 25 years ago, they triggered a liberalizing process known as tax competition and other nations had to follow suit. As a result, top personal income tax rates in the developed world have dropped by about 23 percentage points and top corporate tax rates have dropped by about 19 percentage points. Now there is a flat tax revolution in Central and Eastern Europe, and once again tax competition deserves much of the credit. Unfortunately, high-tax nations are trying to stop this trend and have enlisted international bureaucracies to fight tax competition, either by imposing taxes at the global level or by imposing tax harmonization policies to hinder the flow of jobs and capital from high-tax nations to low-tax jurisdictions. Either approach would undermine America's competitive position in the global economy.

Note #1: Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) have introduced a bi-partisan bill (S.3633) to stop the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other international organizations from taxing U.S. citizens and corporations or otherwise interfering with American tax policy.

Note #2: Senators Mitch McConnell, James Inhofe and Sam Brownback inserted language in this year's State Department spending bill (H.R.5522, Sec.577) that would bar the OECD from using the U.S. taxpayer contribution for "activities or projects ... designed to hinder the flow of capital and jobs from high-tax jurisdictions to low-tax jurisdictions or to infringe on the sovereign right of jurisdictions to determine their own domestic policies." Passage of the appropriations bill is pending Congressional approval.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

3:30 p.m.

406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
*** EPW Committee Room ***

RSVP to Andy Quinlan at (202) 285-0244
Or, email: andy@freedomandprosperity.org

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