Reply #32: Wrong about the EU.

[German-Lefty]

Along these lines, there was a very interesting circumstance in Ireland just two years ago. The European Union, led by France, was highly critical of Irish tax policy – particularly on corporations – because the Irish had reduced their tax on corporations from 48 percent to 12 percent and business was flooding into Ireland. The European Union wanted to impose a penalty on Ireland in the form of a 17 percent corporate tax hike to bring them into line with other European countries. Needless to say, the Irish didn’t buy that. The European community responded by saying that what the Irish were doing was unfair and uncompetitive. The Irish Minister of Finance agreed: He pointed out that Ireland was charging corporations 12 percent, while charging its citizens only 10 percent. So Ireland reduced the tax rate to 10 percent for corporations as well. There’s another one the French lost!
I agree with the French. If Ireland or Luxembourg drops its corporate tax rate, all the corps in the EU want to move their headquarters there. They still use German labor, roads, and what not, but they don't want to pay for it. That's unfair.

What's makes it more annoying is all the EU money the other countries donated to Ireland to build up their economy over the last couple years, which guess what came from our high taxes. Not that I have anything against the Irish. Ireland and Portugal needed help, now that we've built them up, we'll get to work on the east block.