The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement, TTIP, between the US and Europe appears to be doomed to fail. Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, deems the TTIP dead, and France calls for an immediate termination of the negotiations.
Since 2012 the so called “group requests” in tax matters have become theoretically possible, although for years absolutely nothing has been heard concerning this delicate issue. It is known now that such a request from Netherlands, filed in July 2015, was endorsed by the Swiss Supreme (Bundesgericht).
Even if the European customers have long legalised and subsequently taxed their wealth parked in Switzerland (wherever this was not done before), the court’s ruling points to a rather dicey political influence. Clearly the judges succumbed to pressures from abroad passing a verdict based not on legal but on political considerations. The double tax agreement between Netherlands and Switzerland stipulates that in the case of such an inquiry the name of the client has to be both known and provided. Since in this case the Dutch did not fulfil this condition, the court’s decision appears the more surprising. This ruling will certainly eventuate in further group requests even though the tax payments so hoped for may have already been long rendered.
The local state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have turned into a disaster for Chancellor Angela Merkel. The CDU was overtaken by the new party, AfD (Alternative for Germany), relegating it to the status of the third-strongest party. “The day after” there was a great deal of wailing and the culprit was identified promptly – Chancellor Merkel. At least the CDU’s junior partner – CSU in Bavaria – blames the failure on Merkel’s refugee welcoming policy. Should the tensions within the alliance lead to a split (CSU chairman, Horst Seehofer, is already being perceived as a candidate for the office of the chancellor), recent polls already reflect this option and present quite a new political landscape. The CSU – currently represented only in Bavaria – would increase their share from 7.4 percent to 14.5 percent nationwide. Although the CDU could indeed lose some votes, CSU and CDU acting as individual parties would together gain almost seven percent votes compared with the poll numbers for them as the Union Party.
The local state elections in Berlin have followed a similar pattern: AfD garnered there 13.6 percent of the votes almost from scratch, while the SPD and CDU recorded big losses. This clearly cannot be called a slip anymore – the entire voter-landscape has evidently already shifted to the right.
Neither smoothly nor gratifyingly ran the presidential election in Austria. Following annulation (due to various irregularities) of the election in May of the FPÖ opponent’s, Alexander van der Bellen, also the second attempt has failed. As it turned, the adhesive seals on postal votes were found to have come unstuck and the vote, thus, declared invalid. The political farce continues.
With its 12.5 percent corporate tax Ireland offers the best business environment in the entire OECD. While for many companies this rate appears still too high, some try various tax tricks to reduce it further. And they do it with a great success! Apparently numerous US companies manage to deliver not even 1 percent in taxes, and this evidently is happening always with generous backing from Dublin. By way of example Apple has been accused of numerous tax trickeries and subsequently condemned to a payment of tax arrears of 13 billion euros, which has led to a discord between Brussels and Dublin. – Written by Ralph Weidenmann
Your Wealth at a Glance.