So "that's" the problem....its all so simple!

sent by Phil

John Kerry thinks Americans are too stupid to invest their own money

About the only words I can come up with on this... are swear words....this from Herman Munster, the typical socialist who lives off his Lili's money. Life is good at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

I just can't be trusted with my own money.....thank God for John Kerry.

Obama throws another one under the bus....

We should have enough verses to rewrite the Queen song "Another one under the bus".

In Obama's daily throw them under the bus tour, we got another one who "forgot" to pay their taxes. Don't you wish that excuse worked for us little people. Hilda Solis, a Democrat from El Monte, California is at least the fourth Obama nominee whose confirmation has been complicated by tax troubles.......and these are just the ones who have been "caught"......you know what it's like when you see a cockroach...you can only guess how many more are hiding in the woodwork.

EU considers new rules to limit banking secrecy

Banking secrecy should not stop European governments from swapping information on possible tax evaders, the EU executive said Monday, backing French and German efforts to clamp down on tax fraud.


The new measures, if approved by all 27 EU nations, would affect EU residents trying to avoid taxes at home by opening accounts in Luxembourg, Belgium and Austria, which have laws allowing for a high level of banking confidentiality. Low taxes in tiny Luxembourg also attract many investors from neighboring Belgium, France and Germany......that would be me.
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Taxation in Belgium is the highest in Europe

Expatriates and Belgian citizens suffer from one of the highest taxation rates in the EU. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development revealed that Belgium has the highest tax burden - including social security - in Europe at 55.4% for a single earner.

This compares to an average 42% in Europe. An expatriate working in Belgium will typically be liable to Belgian income tax. STORY IN EXPATICA

They will find a way to get your money

The European Union agreed Tuesday to sweeping changes to the way electronic services are taxed after Luxembourg finally agreed to a deal to end the perks enjoyed by its e-commerce industry - but not until 2015.
Plans to apply sales tax in the country in which services are consumed, rather than the location of the company that sells them, are the latest assault on Luxembourg's ability to act as a tax haven.

But the dispute also raised issues about how the EU should adapt its tax regime to a world in which more services are bought and sold in cyberspace.
With its low rates of sales tax, or value added tax, Luxembourg has attracted many of the biggest names in online sales, including companies like Amazon.com, Skype and PayPal.

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EU decides to tax the handicapped

Nasty EU: "People who rely on motorised scooters to help to cope with disabilities are to be hit with a 300 pound tax, after an EU ruling that they should be categorised along with "leisure vehicles".

The electric power-driven wheelchairs with flexible handlebars are used by people with severe mobility difficulties, such as disabled ex-servicemen.

They are now taxed in the same class as snowmobiles, jet skis and racing cars. A personal appeal has been made to Gordon Brown to intervene, but there has been no response from Downing Street, according to Jim Dooley, who runs the Mobility Bureau that provides motorised wheelchairs and scooters for hundreds of Service veterans.

Under the EU ruling the scooters are now subject to a 300 pound import tax on top of their 2,000 pound cost. The decision by the EU was made in 2001 but it was not properly implemented by Revenue & Customs until this year, after a complaint from Belgium that the required 10 per cent import tax was not being enforced by Britain."

I only use mine to get through the casino, but that's gotta be a bitch if you really are handicapped.

Belgium wins the Bronze medal!

Belgians have to hand over, on average, 44.8 percent of all their earnings to the state. The fiscal burden in Belgium in 2006 was the third highest in the countries of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), after Sweden and Denmark. This emerges in provisional figures from this organisation. The tax burden in Belgium did drop in comparison to 2005.
The tax burden is measured by the OECD in a percentage of the GDP. This comes to 44.8 percent in Belgium for 2006. Only in Sweden (50.1 percent) and Denmark (49 percent) is the figure higher.
All three countries did show a fall in the tax burden compared to 2005.

Belgium's tax burden is quite a bit higher than the OECD average. For 2005 – the last year for which complete figures are available – the average percentage was 36.2.

Taxing you...until you buy elsewhere.

I noticed this awhile ago, as we are only 15 miles from France, we do a lot of our big shopping there. I just didn't realise half the country was doing it.

Since the eco tax was implemented in 2003 Belgians have been spending almost 50 percent more in shops across the border, tempted by the lower prices of mineral water and lemonade in France.
De Morgen reports this on Wednesday citing the federation of distributors, Fedis, as their source.
Every year almost 1.1 million Belgians (one in four families) reportedly do their shopping across the border. In total Belgians would annually spend EUR 477 million in cross border shopping, according to Fedis. In 2002, the year before the eco tax was introduced, the amount was EUR 323 million.
Fedis has estimated that due to the implementation of eco tax, 2,200 jobs have been lost in the distribution and production sector . To Fedis this is unacceptable and it wants to file a complaint with the European Commission.

Belgian Banks can now accept "Black Money"

Belgian banks will be able to accept small amounts of funds that have been kept from the taxman.
Until now bank clerks risked a conviction, if they handled illicit earnings - what Belgians generally refer to as "black money" - but a modification of the definition of fencing in Belgian criminal law means they now no longer need to fear a court appearance.

Leo Van Hove, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, made a monetary study of the underground economy of Belgium as part of his 1997 doctoral thesis.
“Black work” costs every single Belgian EUR 1,500 per year in additional taxes, says Siebens. A family of four pays a staggering EUR 6,000 extra in taxes every year in order to make up the amount of taxes that would have been paid had everyone reported their income. “Only the richest people are profiting from this situation,” he says.