Rise of the Global Tax Collectors | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Rise of the Global Tax Collectors | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "This means that the most vile governments will receive financial account information automatically about individuals from other countries. Assume you are standing up to or protesting some corrupt or authoritarian regime in your own country — there are too many to name — and to protect your family, you have a bank account in the United States, Switzerland or some other nation that offers basic protections of civil liberties. Under automatic information-sharing, the thugs you are opposing will be receiving information about your finances from the U.S. government and other governments, which can put your property and your life at risk. The response from the bureaucrats in the OECD and Obama administration is “we protect confidential information,” as if they had never heard of Wiki-Leaks or the other never-ending hacks of government data. Again, we are told that governments will increasingly engage in “automatic” information-sharing and will “protect confidential information,” but please don’t notice the disconnect. Most people view their tax returns and bank account information as “confidential.” Would you voluntarily risk your life on the unenforceable promise of someone in government not to lose, misplace, sell or leak your financial information?"

"the OECD published a report claiming that the poverty rate is higher in the United States than in countries such as Greece, Portugal and Turkey. To reach this absurd conclusion, the OECD redefined poverty as a relative measure of cash income (not real income, which includes transfer payments). Under the new OECD definition of poverty, if real incomes were twice as high as they are today in the United States — meaning the poorest 10 percent could purchase double the amount of food, housing, etc., the U.S. poverty rate still would not fall, because income distribution would stay the same."

"U.S. taxpayers are supporting high-salaried international bureaucrats who are advocating higher taxes on others, most notably U.S. taxpayers, but do not pay income taxes themselves."