For the last decade, the high-tax countries of the European continent have been engaged in an aggressive and largely unknown war against low tax-rate countries around the world. This is not just a war of rhetoric, but one in which Continental governments are trying to destroy the economic livelihood and prospects of many smaller and poorer countries. The war has the goal of stemming the flow of savings and investment to low-tax entitiesfrom the high-tax countries.
These governments are using two basic strategies. The first is to try to force low-tax countries to raise their tax rates, particularly on capital--that is, taxes on individual and corporate income, including taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains. They argue that low-tax countries are economic free-riders, enjoying the protections of the welfare state paid for by higher-tax countries while avoiding taxing their own citizens at high rates. The second strategy is to make it difficult for savers and investors to move their capital freely around the world to its best use. To do so, high-tax countries are attempting to force their capital-friendly neighbors to report what funds they receive from citizens and companies of high-tax countries so they can be "properly" taxed--in their home countries.
