Irish EU Commissioner Understands Benefits of Lower Tax Rates

Charlie McGreevy is a lonely voice in Brussels. Most of his fellow Commissioners believe in bigger government and higher taxes, but McGreevy is from Ireland, and he obviously understands from his own country’s experience that lower tax rates promote growth and create opportunity. Tax​-news​.com reports:

Internal Market Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy outlined his position on taxation within the European Union, suggesting that ‘higher taxes feed fatter government’. …“Some see taxation as a means of making society more equal. Of levelling down. Of limiting the upside rewards that go with taking risk or working hard. I don’t. …I don’t see taxation as meritorious in its own right. I believe taxes – of all kinds — should be kept as low as possible and that the pressure to get them down should be relentless. I believe also, where there is a choice on how to levy taxes, preference should be given to levying them on spending. Taxes on income are taxes on effort, work and entrepreneurship. Taxes on capital are taxes on investment and risk taking. But it is effort, work, entrepreneurship, investment and risk taking that we need to continue to grow our economic base. And it is that growth that generates the incremental tax revenues that finance sustainable improvements in welfare. It was when taxes on income were raised and the thresholds at which they became payable were lowered that Ireland’s economy and public finances came close to basket case status. When capital taxes on wealth creation and entrepreneurship proliferated non‐​compliance proliferated with it, and wealth and jobs were driven out. In fact the tax revenues that some of those taxes generated were barely adequate to cover the cost of collecting them.”