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Eurealist :: Main Page: “EUROPEAN UNION TAXPAYERS’ CHARTER
by Eurealist on May 14, 2005 02:47PM (BST)

EUROPEAN UNION TAXPAYERS’ CHARTER
by Eurealist on May 14, 2005 02:47PM (BST)

EUROPEAN UNION TAXPAYERS’ CHARTER

From a rather disgruntled David Jacques Bremen, Germany. Who says of the EU;

If we can’t get out of it let’s at least do something constructive by applying the ideas in the attached and admittedly incomplete draft taxpayers charter.

Not a bad idea!

We EU taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners in every conceivable way. Our Lords and Master in politics and the public service have granted themselves a raft of totally unjustifiable privileges over the years resulting in a situation akin to that which prevailed 150 years ago before “democracy” became a buzzword. In those days a small privileged minority governed and administered and the rest were only required to do two things – pay up and shut up. Government was unrepresentative, which is pretty much what it is now. Or do you feel genuinely represented by your local Member of (the European or national) Parliament? Participation in elections is at a record low, crime is rising and the “black” economy is now at least as large as its legitimate equivalent throughout the EU. Instead of determining the causes and curing them, both national and EU governments have decided to employ even more civil servants to try and gaol everyone involved in “economic crime” and the black economy. They have moved the goalposts of crime so that in Germany, to take but one example, the tax code is understood by no one (as the country’s top tax accountant recently admitted in public on TV) but every breach of it, however minor, is treated as a crime and not a misdemeanour as it used to be. This is a bureaucrat’s paradise – the state now always has a means of pressuring the ordinary citizen into behaving as they wish.

We taxpayers have got to stop the rot getting to the point at which some latter-day Cromwell feels impelled to send them all home and advise them to take their baubles of office with them. I append my proposals on the subject and hope you agree with them. If you have any suggestions to make – let me know. David Jacques mailto:dajacques@t-online.de

1. Politicians and civil servants must be treated in law, particularly tax law, exactly as we are. Bodies of law such as the German “Beamtengestze”, which basically state that permanent civil servants are a better class of human being than all the other inhabitants of the country, must be forbidden at EU level.

2. It follows from this that politicians and civil servants must be made 100% liable to exactly the same confiscatory taxation and excessive social insurance contributions as all the rest of us. No more luxury free indexed pensions for which they do not even pay taxes although they definitely represent an enormous financial advantage over the rest of us. If you or I are entitled to a free pencil every week according to our contract of employment then we have to pay tax for the pecuniary advantage that this “perk” represents. Exactly the same logic must apply to the political caste and the civil service.

3. There are a whole host of examples of totally unjust and unjustifiable perks and privileges for politicians and civil servants that you and I are denied. A short list of those that occur to me spontaneously follows.

Members of the European Parliament have legitimised a travel expenses swindle for themselves that has cost us taxpayers billions to date. The excuse for it is that the lowest paid MEPs need money, which is nonsense. All EU civil servants are paid according to a single salary scale – the same should apply to MEPs. How to determine it? Simple. Add together what each member country pays its ordinary MPs, divide the result by the number of countries – and that’s the MEP’s current salary. This swindle must be stopped and those who have drawn payments under it must be required to either

a) justify that/those payment/s just as you or I must to our tax office or

b) be obliged to repay all monies received that cannot be so justified, i.e. for which no proof that would stand up in a court of law of having incurred the travel expenses involved is provided.

Some MEPs make so much out of this racket that they can afford to buy a new flat or house every year. Such properties should be treated as are the proceeds of drug smuggling if the MEP concerned cannot prove entitlement to the funds used to purchase it, i.e. sequestered by the national government of the country that MEP “represents”.

MEPs habitually claim “attendance money” for conferences etc. that they only spent 10 minutes at to register their names on the attendance list. There is no reason in the first place why they should be paid extra for condescending to do the job they’re paid for. If such events involve travel expenses then those should be recompensed only against proof of their having been incurred. Any allowance merely for attending events that are part of their duties should be scrapped altogether. Attending events that are no part of their official duties should be their private problem. That’s the way the tax authorities treat us, isn’t it? MEPs should be fully liable for the same taxation in their respective home countries as their fellow citizens. They should also be entitled to any allowances tax-deductible for ordinary citizens – but nothing more.

4. The principle of personal responsibility that has always prevailed in private industry must also apply to politics and the public service. Politicians and civil servants who waste our hard-earned money must be forced to repay it. A prime example here is the subsidy that was payable for transhipping grain. It used to be a popular public entertainment to watch ships come into Hamburg harbour, offload grain, reload the same grain and then sail on. Each time they did so entitled the owners to a thumping subsidy. It took the EU/EC over 18 years to even notice something was wrong! In future, anyone responsible for such idiot legislation should be liable for the damage done to the taxpayer. This would have the added benefit of stopping the EU passing laws on such earth-shakingly important things as the curvature bananas are allowed to have and the like.

5. Unequal treatment and inequitable laws have unfortunately become the norm. In Germany, all payments from pension insurance policies taken out from 01 January 2005 on will be liable to full taxation. Note that politicians and civil servants will continue to enjoy their luxury free indexed pensions with no deductions at all. No liability to any tax for the pecuniary advantage this unjustifiable privilege represents, either! Similar legislation exists in virtually all EU nations. All legislation must in future apply to ALL equally with no special treatment for anyone. Any law that results in unreasonable hardship/s for anyone if applied to everyone equally should simply not be passed. Wouldn’t you say that’s fair?

6. The EU/EC are currently trying to make all interest on all bank accounts in so-called tax havens liable to what they call withholding tax. This sounds superficially fair and just. It isn’t. If I represented the Channel Islands at these negotiations I’d refuse to negotiate anything with the EU/EC “fat cats” opposite me at the negotiating table until and unless those “fat cats” became liable to exactly the same taxation and social welfare payments as their fellow citizens in their respective home countries. They currently draw outrageous salaries and pay no tax on them at all, so what they are indulging in here is actually hypocrisy of a very high order. In reality the “tax havens” are the last small niches of lean, mean and efficient government left in the developed world. Channel Island politicians do not enjoy a raft of privileges at their taxpayers’ expense plus fat salaries and allowances. What the EU is trying to do is to deprive these “tax havens” of their sole national income and make them dependent at some future date on EU subsidies for financial survival. Guess who will foot the bill for that. The social welfare argument, by the way, doesn’t apply. The Channel Islands have arguably the best social welfare system in the world, and the other tax havens are a lot better than the average EU member nation on average.

7. EU governments grab about 70% of their respective nation’s GNP and try to kid us all that it’s for our own good. This is rubbish. The money is needed above all to maintain farcically bloated government machines. A lot of governments are already unable to foot the bill for the thumping indexed pensions their former politicians and civil servants are entitled to. The reason is that these people don’t pay for them. Stop and think about it. We’re giving preferential treatment to professions that are purely parasitic in the sense that they produce no direct economic good whatsoever. Those who do produce direct economic good are treated as second-class citizens and required only to subsidise their “betters” and not make trouble. The only other example of this behaviour in history is the old Chinese empire, which ossified in about the 13th century and was unable to defend itself against anyone by the 19th. That is what our Lords and Masters are letting us in for!

8. What we taxpayers urgently need is legislation at EU level limiting taxation to 30% of GNP at most plus social welfare payments. These latter would have to be used 100% by law for that purpose only and no other. The cost of administering social welfare would have to come from the capped 30%. This provision is essential to prevent wily politicians misusing the money for purposes that have nothing whatever to do with social welfare. That’s what Kohl’s German government did – they used the money for “reunification expenses” and plunged the country’s social welfare system into difficulties that still seem insoluble. The government of the country is desperately trying to solve those difficulties without doing any damage to the interests of the political caste or those of the public service. As there is no law in Germany, as there is in the UK, forbidding persons in the public service from putting themselves up for election to political office without first resigning from the public service the interests of the political and public service castes are identical (about 75% of all elected German politicians are serving civil servants!). The result of the absence of such legislation is a form of creeping and all-pervasive corruption that virtually makes democratic government impossible. Government in many EU nations is currently “government of the people by the civil service and for the civil service”. This is absolutely unacceptable in so-called democracies.

9. Politicians voted out of office should be entitled to the same unemployment benefits as the rest of us and nothing more. The major difference, let’s remember, is that they are at least partially responsible for losing their jobs whereas we ordinary mortals very rarely are. This would force them to ensure those benefits are better administered and more appropriate than they are now, as well as scrapping unjustified privileges. Currently, politicians booted out by us electors are entitled to enormous “golden handshake” payouts and generous pensions, often indexed. Both at the taxpayers’ expense, of course, and after a ridiculously brief qualifying period of service. In many countries they continue to enjoy various benefits of office after being kicked out. There are lots of former politicians at various levels throughout the EU still entitled to an office, a secretary, a car, a chauffeur, free petrol and a host of other perks at our expense years after leaving political office. This must be scrapped. Once you’re out, that’s it. All the benefits of office are granted only to the person currently exercising that office and all former holders lose them entirely. All the arguments put up about this measure and others like it making it difficult to find people of adequate calibre willing to enter politics, by the way, can safely be ignored. People are queuing up to join the vast subsidised ego trip that is politics throughout the EU. Why else are e.g. the EU’s conditions of employment known as “the gravy train”?

10. Democratic accountability is another major issue. Who votes the EU’s commissioners into office? The answer is that they get their jobs on a purely nepotistic basis. No ordinary taxpayer/s is/are consulted. So whom do they actually represent? Not you or I, that’s for certain. Take Patton. He doesn’t represent the UK – no UK elector was ever consulted on his appointment. He doesn’t represent the current governing party – he’s Conservative, they’re Labour. Some cynics think he may represent sinister Hong Kong tongs, but that’s really off the wall. What can be stated with confidence is that he is entitled to a thumping pension, very probably indexed, as former HK governor plus another, equally thumping and also probably indexed, from the EU when he leaves office. He has paid for neither, and pays/paid no tax for the pecuniary advantage such enormous pensions represent. The very least we should demand is that he and others like him have their EU pension set off against all other income, i.e. only one pension per person in public service, the amount being set off against their total income from other sources. EU retirees who happen to be stinking rich in private life – lots of them are, after profiting for years at our expense – should get no EU pension at all if their income equals or exceeds any such EU pension.

The obvious answer to the EU/EC total lack of democratic accountability is to hold referenda on the Swiss model. Disregard the screams about the expense – it’s much cheaper than the current costs of maintaining the European Parliament, which is basically nothing more than a hot-air chamber. It has very little legislative or administrative responsibility despite costing us billions.

10. At least one EU head of state would now be in prison were he not a politician. Parliamentary privilege should not cover criminal offences at all – any politician involved in any such case/s must be treated just as we would be. Where private litigation is concerned that does not involve any breach of the criminal law, politicians should be subject to such litigation just as we ordinary mortals are, the only difference being that they would not be required to take any action in any such litigation whilst the parliament of which they are a member is actually in session. The moment that body takes one of its frequent long recesses the politician/s involved in any such legal proceedings would be in exactly the same position as we ordinary citizens.