Six EU countries are intensifying calls for a bloc-wide windfall tax on oil companies as profits surge amid the war in the Middle East, according to a letter seen by Euronews.
The finance ministers of Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, and Portugal, along with Spain's economy minister, sent a joint letter to Ireland's finance minister, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. The ministers urged that a levy be added to the agenda for next month's meeting of EU finance chiefs in Dublin.
Why not simply have a corporate tax rate that has a progressively higher rate for higher profits, just like income taxes? Then corporations have additional incentives to reinvest profits and they can better plan ahead, instead of having populist one-off measures at random intervals.
While they're at it, why not simply levy corporate taxes at the EU level and use them to (partially) fund the EU budget? Then this whole race to the bottom is no issue, and (intra-EU) tax havens like Ireland, Netherlands and Luxembourg can no longer exist.
Does the German government even agree with its finance minister (it's a 2.5 party coalition)? They've been doing the complete opposite of this since the current government coalition was formed.
Windfall tax does not seem fair at first sight, but a capped profit can be a very good thing is the profit is made from a negative event where a lot of people suffer.
But I'd argue just filling a state's treasury with it doesn't really do anything to those affected by the negative event. These tax revenues should in part directly flow to the people in need, not only in the countries that collect the tax but also to the people who are affected by this war. Controversly, I think a part should go to aid to the people in Iran. Less controversely, also to the people in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan (because of the refugees).
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