US Congress Legislates Against UN Tax Power

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

29 June 2006

The House of Representatives last week passed an appropriations bill which included wording prohibiting the Treasury from paying UN dues if the organization attempts to implement or impose any kind of tax on US citizens.

The 'Fiscal Year 2007 Foreign Operations, Export Financing And Related Programs Appropriations Bill', HR 5522, is one of a number of appropriations (spending) bills making their way through the Congress as implementation of next year's budget continues, and may not survive in its present form. The bill also applies only for the budget year in question.

Says Congressman Ron Paul, (Rep. - Texas), whose wording found its way into the bill: 'Fortunately, the House of Representatives last week passed my language in the 2007 Foreign Operations bill. But that only protects us for another year. Given the stated goals of the UN, it would be foolish to believe the idea of a global tax will go away.'

The United Nations is not the only 'multilateral' that would love to get its hands on a global taxing power. Interference in the USA's internal fiscal policies by the OECD, the IMF and the UN has caused serious annoyance among policy-makers at home, and Congress included wording in a previous appropriations report in January which moves towards restricting funding for anti-competitive international organizations.

The Institute's President of the Institute for Freedom and Prosperity, Andrew Quinlan, said in January: 'American lawmakers repeatedly have warned bureaucrats at the United Nations not to interfere with American tax law or to try to tax Americans, and now they have extended the warning to the bureaucrats at the OECD. Indeed, the most recent legislative language specifically references the importance of global tax competition, putting the US Congress on record in support of sovereignty for all jurisdictions.'

Last November, US members of the Coalition for Tax Competition slammed the OECD for the conclusions drawn in its recently published Country Survey of the United States.

In the report, the OECD observed that "some increase in revenues will be necessary" and that "a federal VAT should be considered", and further suggested that "retaining a personal income tax would allow the desired degree of progressivity of the overall tax system to be achieved".

Speaking with regard to the report, Andrew Quinlan observed: "Here we go again. Once again the OECD is pushing on the US their Euro-centric, anti-American economic policies. It is time for the President and Congress to re-evaluate America's annual subsidy to the OECD. In fact, we should cut our contribution greatly, or zero it out all together."

Meanwhile, Daniel Mitchell, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, suggested that:

"A VAT would mean bigger government and economic stagnation. The OECD is supposed to recommend policies that increase growth, not policies that increase government. It is encouraging that Congress is finally reconsidering the wisdom of having US taxpayers subsidize the Paris-based bureaucracy."

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