Last week, the European Commission issued an inconspicuously looking seven-page note on economic policy coordination, addressed to the European Parliament and the European Council. Although its publication has attracted scarcely any attention, the document has far-reaching implications. The introduction states, in an unapologetic tone, that:

the Commission considers it important that national plans for any major economic policy reforms are assessed and discussed at EU-level before final decisions are taken at the national level. (p. 2, emphasis added)

While European institutions have traditionally been involved in economic policymaking, their mandate is limited to policing compliance with the rules of the common market and those of the monetary union—with mixed results, one would hasten to add.

The wording of last week’s paper goes way beyond that narrow mandate. While it stipulates that “the process should fully respect national decision-making powers,” (p. 5) it would effectively empower European institutions to harass prospective European reformers in countries that decide to join the scheme. Not that many countries would have a choice—for Eurozone members, there would be a binding requirement to participate in this process of “ex ante coordination.”

Even under the most charitable reading, this would create an additional layer of slow-moving bureaucracy with the potential of delaying reforms. And if “windows of opportunity” for specific economic reforms are limited, it would necessarily imply that certain efficiency-enhancing reforms would be derailed. Arguably, if Slovak or Estonian finance ministers had to justify their tax reforms to their counterparts from France or Germany, the flat tax revolution in Eastern Europe would have never happened.

And why should economic reforms be coordinated across Europe at all? Here’s one argument given by the paper:

 Product, services and labour market reforms as well as certain tax reforms may affect employment and growth in the implementing Member State, and hence the demand for products and services from other Member States. This is because a reform may also have a positive or negative impact on the reforming Member State’s price and non-price competitiveness. (p. 3)

Clearly, cross-border spillovers exist. But the same spillovers exist on a competitive market—whenever a firm changes its strategy or innovates, it can exercise “a positive or negative impact” on sales made by other companies. Yet very few would advocate coordination of innovation or business decisions—partly because the benefits of competition on product or service markets are patently obvious to most people. If anything, the benefits of competition are even more important in the choice of institutions and policies. And that’s why the sneaky power grab by European institutions has to be stopped.

Canada’s federal government introduced a budget yesterday that includes new estimates of corporate tax revenues. I’ve discussed how Canada has cut its statutory corporate tax rate to a fraction of the U.S. rate, yet Canada raises more revenue. The new budget shows that the Canadian federal 15 percent tax raised 1.9 percent of GDP in revenue in 2012, while the U.S. federal tax at 35 percent raised just 1.6 percent, per CBO.

U.S. revenues are below normal levels right now, so let’s look further out at the steady-state projections for the two countries. Canada’s budget projection to 2018 shows that corporate tax revenues under the 15 percent rate are expected to stabilize at 1.9 percent of GDP. U.S. projections by the CBO show that corporate tax revenues will rise to 2.6 percent and then fall back to 2.0 percent in the longer-term. So the Canadian corporate tax will raise 95 percent as much as the U.S. tax even though the Canadian rate is just 43 percent of the American rate. The upshot is that worries about proposed U.S. corporate tax cuts reducing revenues are misplaced. If the U.S. federal government chopped its 35 percent rate, the tax base would expand automatically over time and the government would probably lose little if any revenue.

The following charts compare U.S. and Canadian rates and revenues:

Cigarette butt, to be specific.

All over the world, governments impose draconian taxes on tobacco, and then they are surprised when projected revenues don’t materialize. We’ve seen this in Bulgaria and Romania, and we’ve seen this Laffer Curve effect in Washington, DC, and Michigan.

Even the Government Accountability Office has found big Laffer Curve effects from tobacco taxation.

And now we’re seeing the same result in Ireland.

Here are some details from an Irish newspaper.

[N]ew Department of Finance figures showing that tobacco excise tax receipts are falling dramatically short of targets, even though taxes have increased and the number of people smoking has remained constant… [T]he latest upsurge in [cigarette] smuggling … is costing the state hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Criminal gangs are openly selling smuggled cigarettes on the streets of central Dublin and other cities, door to door and at fairs and markets. Counterfeit cigarettes can be brought to the Irish market at a cost of just 20 cents a pack and sold on the black market at €4.50. The average selling price of legitimate cigarettes is €9.20 a pack. …Ireland has the most expensive cigarettes in the European Union, meaning that smugglers can make big profits by offering them at cheaper prices.

I had to laugh at the part of the article that says, “receipts are falling dramatically short of targets, even though taxes have increased.”

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