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> The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon.

With Erdogan behaving like a little dictator more and more, this can not ever happen. Turkey is getting more and more Islamistic and less European every day.

Some proponents of Turkey joining the EU actually hope that being part of a more global economic and cultural whole would offer more opportunities for the Turks and temper Turkey's potential risk of becoming more religiously extreme.

This is the idea. The EU super-structure should constrain extremist elements by acting as a moderating influence. Ease of travel and trade should integrate Turkey into Europe rather than the Near or Middle East. Turkey will qualify for regional development funds. EU gains as well by enlarging the market. Should be win-win.

By that standards you really ought to be proposing that Israel join the EU next. After all, neither geographic nor human-rights criteria are being applied anymore if you're letting Turkey in!

(To make the sardony clear, I support neither Israel nor Turkey joining the EU.)

> The EU super-structure should constrain extremist elements by acting as a moderating influence.

We don't even manage to integrate the Brits into the EU, and there is not even a religious issue.

Yeah, but as it is, Turkey is developing into a mini-Russia. How do you deal with that?

Turkey is worse than Russia, imho. Erdogan is a religious extremist nutcase, Putin is just a "power player."

Power plays can be predicted and mitigated, religious extremism not.

I don't agree.

Once you've experienced the creation of a company, you realize that when a company gives 25€ to an employee, 68€ was was given to the tax and 7€ to people who help dealing with the tax complexity (accountants, lawyers, inspections). Total 100€, the price the customer pays. And I think those 68€ are too much. So:

Tax Heavens: In Argentina you're not allowed to transfer your money abroad, unless approved by the government. I call that a dictatorship. We must not do the same. Tax heavens exist for a reason. We must rather fight tax complexity. Complexity is a weight on every CEO, it's a hidden tax on every worker.

No to Tobin tax.

Science: Stop exploring the outer space. Let the money for each company/person to hire more employees. When you're old but not disabled yet, don't you want to hire an Au Pair to take care of your laundry? Our people needs money to pay for their local jobs, not for space rockets.

Politics: Dismembering NATO and UN is not any kind of solution. We need our own successful startups (I mean the size of Google and Apple) - Why wouldn't we have those in EU? Then we can equally deal at a worldwide level, menace of spying on the world's emails and businesses, or better, we can equally negociate with US a worldwide non-spying treaty.

Welfare: The Scandanavian model has become a gimick. My flatmate in Australia was born in Thailand on the countryside and at 22 he was making $1000 a week as a waiter in a hotel. That's what I call: One person, one chance.

No company has to pay 68% employer wage taxes in Europe. I'm saying that as an employer who has looked into this at some point to figure out if there was any major advantage to running a company in one country or another, the bigger differentiator is simply that in some countries wages are simply far lower than in others.

Tax havens (not heavens) exist as a form of legal arbitrage and allow those with lots of money to dodge taxes at the expense of those without and as such are a real problem.

Nike and Google combined paid less tax in NL last year than I did, which is quite wrong given their massive turnover and profits.

http://qz.com/240511/heres-how-much-tax-google-paid-on-its-e...

Not exploring outer space is the equivalent of shutting down one of the more productive avenues of basic research, if you took away all of the spin-offs of space research from your house it would dramatically change your quality of life.

Your NATO/UN start-up link makes no sense, the EU governments are very much complicit in the spying scandal.

The Scandinavian model can only be compared to other models if you wish to criticize it meaningfully, your anecdote is meaningless, a better alternative will certainly be given more consideration.

You said it better than I could.

I would add that the EU is not standing still at all. It is making moves on a number of these fronts.

Havens: The Irish/Dutch loophole is being closed. Switzerland and Lichtenstein and others are coming under ever increasing scrutiny[1]. But you probably already know this.

Space: ESA[2], Galileo[3]. Note that Galileo is a ESA project, which would be like NASA building/funding GPS. Civilian rather than military.

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/100783858 "Europe's Vanishing Tax Havens"

[2] http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/ESA_history/Forty...

[3] http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/The_future_-_Ga...

VAT 20%, Social contributions 46%, income tax 10-15%, residence tax 5%. Mandatory accountant (2000€/year), corporate yearly registration fees, corporate local tax. Assuming no expense at the company level, the employees can buy 25€ of new products.

Total burden: 75€ out of 100€ sales (since some tax are compounded and others have an excess/floor system). Did I make my point? I know you'll keep arguing, but please reckon first that the 75% burden is a fact.

VAT if you're paying it is a tax that adds to input costs.

Income tax is a tax calculated over profit.

You can't just sum the percentages together as a simplification.

It's (Sales Price - (Cost of Goods * VAT + Cost of Goods))*Income Tax Rate = Y

Correct, and when you do that, you get 68%. Make the calculation yourself:

100€ sales,

17€ VAT,

15€ various corporate tax and mandatory accountant in average,

No other corporate spending (no office obviously),

Remains 68€ to pay the employee. 31€ for social contributions.

Net salary 37€.

Employee pays 4-6€ income tax.

Employee is left with 32€.

Of course if you take a partial lifecycle, like "The income tax is only 10-15%", it looks like nothing. You need to take the full lifecycle of the money, from the customer to the company and back to the employee.

In the USA, sales-tax is deductible from your income so you're not required to submit to double taxation.

In Europe, is VAT not tax-deductible?

My initial reaction was "wait.. no one looks at the full lifecycle of money", but after that first double-take, I'm starting to think that you might be onto something.

It's complete poppycock and mixes corporate taxes and private income taxes.

If you want a 'full cycle' accounting then you'd have to know what the money gets spent on, for instance, if you buy fuel you'll pay a lot more tax depending on which country you are in (or very little, that's how the rates differ).

If you really want to do 'fully cycle' taxation you're going to conclude that all money eventually ends up in the tax coffers but clearly that's not how it works because people actually end up with certain goods and services.

An example:

A business turns over 10M, makes a net profit of 20%, so 2M. Depending on the country it will pay roughly 35% corporate income tax, so 1.2M left. That 1.2M can then be paid out as dividends @ (again, depending on the country) 10% to 25% dividend tax, so the individuals owning the stock will receive anywhere from 800K to 1.1M.

So on that level you're paying anywhere from 45 to 55% tax.

If you're earning a wage then the above does not apply (because for a company wages are a cost), so the company will pay your social security, corporate component, quite a bit of which is your pension, social security and various healthcare components (depending on the location). You could see these as 'taxes' but in fact they will benefit you in a very direct way.

Your income tax will be anywhere from 25% to 50% depending on your country of origin and your income level (assuming staggered scales).

After that the situation for both forms of income is roughly the same (we're now on the expense side of things):

If you spend that money to buy a house VAT does not apply.

If you spend that money to buy food then VAT will be typically a low rate (4 to 10%, again, depending on the country).

If you use it to buy consumer goods, you'll be paying 15% to 25% VAT depending on the location.

If you use it to buy energy or fuel you may end up paying no VAT to a terrible amount depending on your location.

VAT is typically not tax deductible in the EU, but to avoid double (or n-fold) VAT taxation companies can in fact reclaim their VAT.

VAT is an end-user tax and the purpose of it would be totally defeated if it were deductible for private individuals.

Note that in many countries VAT was instigated after WWII as a 'rebuilding tax' that had a 15 year sunset clause, but (of course...) the money was too good and the tax remained (and climbed substantially in %age).

Good pount that there are different flows, like buying a house where there is no VAT.

Note that dividends are taxed at the corporate level (IS, 15.5%), then the recipient must pay his income tax on top. The rest of your calculations is correct.

> Note that dividends are taxed at the corporate level (IS, 15.5%), then the recipient must pay his income tax on top.

Not in every country, for instance in NL you only pay 10% private on top the 15% dividend tax, foreigners don't even pay the 10%.

Isnt VAT equivalent to sales tax and paid by the customer, not the company? Its disingenuous to say 100€ sales if the company sold 83€ of goods. Would not corporate taxes and so on be paid on the 83, not the 100?

I would be curious to see your actual math.

In Europe consumer prices must be displayed including VAT. Example: Apple TV costs 79€, which is 65,83€ plus 20% VAT. If you're a supermarket for business (like office supplies), then you might exceptionnaly be allowed to display the non-VAT price in a bigger font than the total price.

The rates are different in every EU country. Which one are you referring to? The average EU tax take is about 36% of GDP vs 27% in the US but we get health care included in that. The tax plus healthcare cost is probably similar between the US and the EU.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenu... - not sure that includes all VAT etc)

How about taxing corporation based on their income rather than on the profit? Just like you and me are taxed.

No offence. I don't even no where to start in responding to you.

In reverse order. Welfare: a single anecdote is no rebuttal, how could it ever be? I've lived in Finland, I've _experienced_ the Scandinavian model first hand and I keep up-to-date on global stats. Granted, they are not perfect places but in terms of inequality (hint: this metric _really_ matters), social inclusion, access and quality of healthcare, education, public services and so on the countries of Scandinavia frequently come out on top _globally_. That is uncontested. Yay for your Thai friend. Maybe they would have made €700 (going rate) a week as a waiter in a hotel in Scandinavia?

Politics: I _said_ re-make the UN _security council_. Not dismember the UN! I can't take you seriously if you don't give an honest reading of what I said. But yes, I am advocating disengaging gradually from NATO, it is a source of tension in the world _and_ importantly for Europeans it makes Europe subservient to US foreign policy. The rest of what you say there I cannot understand.

Science: Eh hello? All our eggs in one basket? We need to become multi-planetary ASAP. The tech discovered in attempting to do so will actually help improve life on earth. Not a zero-sum game, sorry!

Tobin tax: You may not have noticed the recent implosion of the world economy a.k.a. The Great Recession. And the subsequent bailing out of the financial industry. Inequality growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Most people know that the one way to make the financial sector subservient to the rest of the economy and not the other way around is to implement some form of Tobin tax. The UK is quaking in its boots in the EU because it recognises that France, Germany and others want this.

Without context your numbers are meaningless. With all respect, you need to realise that anecdotal unreferenced data-points are not a rebuttal to statements of general opinion. For instance you need to assert what you think is wrong with the Scandinavian model, wrong with the idea of a Tobin tax, and so on.

Tax havens: You're happy with people scamming the system. I'm not. This process is already well under way by the way.

+1 for responding point per point ;)

Welfare: At least you've experienced the Scandinavian model, so I'll give credit to your testimonial. I've lived in Australia so I've experienced another one, pretty much at the opposite, and if you say my Thai friend could have made the same money in Oslo, with more healthcare and education, then I'd vote for the Scandavian model.

Science: "We need to become multiplanetary asap"? Social inclusion or sustainability is a higher priority to me. Concerning the technological advance that space exploration brings us, well, wherever we pour dozens of billion euros we'll get a technological advance. So I'd rather we explore world hunger than space. But nowadays it's easier to get votes for supporting ESA than world hunger.

Tobin tax: If it could solve everything you mention, I would be all for it. But it won't solve inequality and it will slow down our economy again.

Hey, no problem. Kudos for taking the criticism graciously.

Welfare: I can't comment on Australia. Australia is resource-rich and people from this part of the world keep emigrating to there and not coming back. I don't know how well Oz treats its poorest, which is my measure of any society. But I'm no commie :)

Science: This is what I'm saying. I don't think is totally zero-sum. Granted, money spent on the space programme is money not spent on "world hunger" (where does this go by the way, charity?) But there are economic benefits from pursuing space. I've heard that a lot of world hunger could be solved by reducing subsidies to EU and US farmers which is a form of protectionism which goes against the capitalist spirit, and I'd be all for that to the limit of US and EU being food-independent. So you see, I'm not commie either :)

Tobin tax: Clearly there is an economic imbalance to the benefit of the financial sector of the economy. In fact, it seems like many governments get "captured" by finance and so can't effectively regulate and legislate. The Tobin tax is supposed to address this and to the best of my knowledge is said to be a good way of addressing the imbalance by taxing certain types of capital flows. It totally is meant to rebalance the economy thereby making everybody a bit equal which should boost economic growth!

> Politics: Needs to re-make the UN security council. Needs to work harder towards sorting out Israel/Palestine. Needs to disengage from NATO. The accession of Turkey to the EU needs to happen soon.

Not while islamists are in power. After another Kemal Ataturk style coup that enshrines secular character of the country, we could talk about it.

That'll only happen if Europe moves as one and doesn't fragments itself back into competing states. Sadly, this risk seems real.

I agree. It's a constant real risk. Most people are reflexively and unthinkingly tribal and parochial. Europe needs to celebrate its multi-cultural diversity. Homogeneity is boring. Ok, there is a need for harmonisation of standards and markets and laws, but at the same time cultural diversity is healthy.

I think student Erasmus schemes are great, allows young to people to experience how brilliant and non-threatening the variations within Europe are.

The EU really needs to step up on the propaganda :)

I would like to be an optimist on this one.

Language barrier may be the single most important obstacle for further integration. English fluency is growing too slowly due to political reasons, so universal translators may be the one technology EU needs to become and act as a single entity.

I've lived for > 1 year at the time in quite a few countries of Europe. Europe is not a single entity and never will be. The language is a part of this, but the mentality from country to country is a far larger component.

Within Europe you have cultures and mentalities as diverse as you can imagine. Language is the least of the problem.

This is also why many well-meaning individuals, NGO's, governments and other institutions that try to apply knowledge about something that 'worked' in one EU country to another invariably fail.

Comparing Greece to Sweden, The UK to Romania, Serbia to Portugal, Italy to Scotland, Poland to France and Spain to Germany can shed some light on what makes - and keeps - Europe as fragmented as it is.

The Euro, with all its faults, has done more for European unification than any other measure, Schengen being a close second.

Now we're looking at a slow but sure decline in that feeling. Most people have an identity rooted in some rough geographical location, I've yet to hear someone call themselves a European first.

Exactly.

€ and Schengen erase currency and national boundaries. They rock! Whenever I travel to a country within the EU that is not in the €-zone I cringe.

While cultures and mentalities _do_ indeed vary quite a lot let that be seen as a _good_ and healthy thing.

I consider myself European first, British Islander second.

Have to figure out what other boundaries can be erased while at the same time respecting difference. More integration and yet more federation at the same time. The EU could pour money into pre-third level foreign language learning and into machine translation projects? That'd be cool.

> "Europe is not a single entity and never will be."

Having lived in several European countries myself (Spain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland) I can only agree with the first part of the statement. It is not like California and Kansas are very similar either, yet they are part of the same country.

To me the current issue is not the people but politics, and the desire of sovereign countries not to relinquish power to a supranational entity. This is a process that takes time (and typically requires a catalyzer).

Whether the union will succeed or not, time will tell, but in the last 15 years Europe has clearly been converging (Schengen and currency being important aspects, to which I would add Erasmus programs and low-cost flights).

It is not there yet, and with the financial crisis from the last few years, the situation is more difficult at the moment; however, in my opinion if Europe wants to play a relevant geopolitical role vs the US, China, Russia, etc. it will be forced to step up its union efforts.

New York, Kansas and California have more in common from the point of view of the citizens than the countries that you've lived in. You only need to look at how the EU elections are managed versus how the elections for the US Presidency and congress are seen by the US citizens.

The sovereign 'countries' are imaginary constructs made real by physical, cultural and psychological factors, 'power' is such a psychological factor and I think it is far less of an item absent 'nationalism' and we're seeing a very strong resurgence of this in Europe right now. There isn't a country that does not have a far-right or far-left ultra nationalist political party that manages to get a substantial part of the vote. If anything happened at all during the last decade then it is that Europe's window for unity is slowly closing and that in some parts we're already regressing.

This gets expressed in an 'us versus them' mentality not seen since the 80's, the latest nice example of that is Germany deciding to start levying toll on foreigners for the use of the German roads. (Which given the location of Germany is for many people the equivalent of an in-escapable tax.)

So if you feel the Union is converging then that's great, I'm seeing the opposite, more and more nationalist sentiments, Greece possibly departing the Euro and maybe even departing the EU, the UK and possibly others no longer being a part of the union and more and more limitations placed on the original 'free travel of goods and people' mandate that enabled a lot of the EU to get closer.

So, no, it's not there yet and the way things are going we're not ever going to get there either.

The EU did a number of things very wrong, they tried to force the issue on a number of occasions and in fact succeeded in several of those but while they won those particular battles they lost the war in that the 'locals' are not Europe minded because they see downsides to it as well. And that's fine, but ramming unification down their throats definitely is one of the reasons all these backlashes found ground to sprout in and take hold.

Wilders, Le-Pen, the UK euro-skeptics, Greek nationalists and so on all have one thing in common: they use the anti-EU sentiment as their main driving force (and in the case of Wilders, also anti-Islam, but then again, he's simply a nutcase that has found some fear buttons that he can push, like all the other demagogues in history, which doesn't make him any less dangerous).

> New York, Kansas and California have more in common from the point of view of the citizens than the countries that you've lived in.

We have to keep in mind they were not always like this. Willingness to be part of a larger whole is key. EU members are not keen and politicians are playing divide and conquer with the EU.

The fear buttons they play are extraordinarily dangerous.

>Wilders, Le-Pen, the UK euro-skeptics, Greek nationalists and so on all have one thing in common.

Two things actually. A very significant share of euro-skeptics, far right parties and movements are funded by Moscow. When Putin's and his cronies regime falls, European political landscape might change in a very unpredictable way.

And assuming this is true, what makes you think Putin's regime will fall before Greece or UK or Portugal? Greece is on the very edge of the cliff. If Greece leaves the Euro/EU, it isn't going to be as 'contained' as european leaders are making it to be, since Portugal will probably be targeted next, and while on paper seems Portugal is doing better, it isn't really (Gov. is doing everything it can to show Portugal doing well, unf. at a GREAT weight for the populace. Just heard on the news this weekend, the food bank is doing a campaign to feed about 400.000 people that are malnourished. This is around 4% of the population. I know there are many other countries that have more poor people, but as in Greece, when you see your gov. paying money to ECB/IMF and your people is starving, at one point they will break (as they did when they elected Syriza)

As for the UK, I can't really say. I think the referendum in 2017 will end with a "stay" vote, but it will depend a lot on Greece's situation and how France/Germany deal with the UK issues regarding the EU in 2016.

Wait what?

What UK euro-sceptic party receives funding from Moscow?

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Donations.htm

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-su...

http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Search?currentPage=...

Yeah, Moscow would certainly make sure that their funding is easily discovered and attributed.

For example, Le Pen's Front National got EUR 40M loan[0]. Also Greece’s Golden Dawn party, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Italy’s Northern League, Hungary’s Jobbik and the Freedom Party of Austria.[1]

An overview from The Guardian[2]

[0]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/40m-of-russia...

[1]http://www.theweek.co.uk/europe/61498/russia-funds-french-na...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/russian-resurge...

So nothing about UK parties?

Ukip has been cosy with Moscow[0] but I am unaware about any reliable funding stories.

[0]http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/31/nigel-farage...

I don't think there is much more to it than, as the article says "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" - UKIP hates the EU and Putin hates the EU.

It reminds of Churchill's quote after the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union:

If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

Churchill had previously been War Minister at the time of the intervention in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks and was a strong anti-communist.

[NB Just to be clear - I strongly disagree with UKIP policies, but I don't believe for a minute that they'd actually take money from Moscow - it would be political suicide if it was ever found out].

>Within Europe you have cultures and mentalities as diverse as you can imagine.

Isn't it the same with US?

>... try to apply knowledge about something that 'worked' in one EU country to another invariably fail.

Have any source for that information?

> I've yet to hear someone call themselves a European first.

Well, your anecdotal evidence matches the study data[0]. Only three percent of EU citizens identify as "european first". However more people identify as "nationality and European" than "only my nationalty".

>Language is the least of the problem.

Common language for 90+ of citizens would go a long way to establish common culture.

>Europe is not a single entity and never will be.

We'll see :)

[0]http://www.debatingeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Euro...

> Isn't it the same with US?

After trekking through the US and being in 40+ states in total I'd say there are significant local variations but even the furthest extremes do not come close to what you'll encounter on a few hundred kilometer drive through the EU.

> Have any source for that information?

Yes. For instance the (well intentioned) attempts of the EU to manage public works and utility programs in countries that look like they could use a hand with these.

> Common language for 90+ of citizens would go a long way to establish common culture.

You mean like Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland and the United States have a common culture?

The biggest problem here is how to create a pan-EU public opinion with so many different languages... as things are now, it's very easy for those who don't want a united EU to play divide et impera.

Good summary!

I only want to add that it would be nice if most of this would be a global effort.

All these borders create fake differences. We're all the same: human. However mellow that might sound.

Thanks.

Agreed that Europe (as EU) needs to think global, act local. Need to realise that helping our neighbours helps ourselves. Witness the ongoing tragedy of mass death of migrants.

Regarding borders, if we tried to improve things _over there_ then they wouldn't want to create terror or mass immigrate over _over here_. There's only one thing wrong with democracy at the barrel of a gun and combating terrorism with drones. It does not achieve what you want it to achieve.