The Latest News on Dutch Budget and No-Deal Brexit Harm
the Netherlands
The 2021 budget main points: income tax cuts and investment
Key points of the budget for 2021:
The economy
- The economy will shrink 5% this year, but grow 3.5% in 2021 unless there is a second lockdown
- National debt is set to top 60% of GDP
- Unemployment will reach 5.9% next year
- Spending power will rise by an average of 0.8%, with people in work benefiting from a 1.2% increase
- Increased spending on unemployment benefits will result in an overspending of the Ministry of Social Affairs’s budget by € 230 million.
Income and taxes
- Medical staff will receive an additional € 500 bonus next year on top of the tax-free payment of € 1,000 in 2020, but without a structural pay increase
- The base income tax rate to 68,507 euros, which is currently 37.35%, will be reduced to 37.10% next year and again to 37.03% by 2024
- The planned corporate tax cuts for big companies will no longer be implemented, but the rate for small businesses will be reduced from 16.5% to 15%. All companies with a net profit of less than € 400,000 per year are subject to a lower tax rate
- The tax break for the self employed will be reduced in stages of €110 to €3,240 in 2028, rather than €5,000. Next year the deduction will be €6,670
- Savings tax will apply to savings of more than € 50,000, compared with almost € 31,000 currently and € 100,000 for couples
- The dividend tax will be reformed to bring the situation in the Netherlands in line with Europe, but this will cost the government an initial payment of 910 million euros to foreign investors.
United Kingdom
Boris Johnson’s push for no deal will harm the country and his party
By damaging the economy in the name of chasing red-wall Brexit voters, the Tories may lose others they take for granted
“Fantastic” and “incredible” are keywords in the Prime Minister’s surprisingly limited vocabulary. But the wild, comedic optimism that earned him his election victory is dangerously weak.
Real life will eventually collide with Brexit fantasies, but when? How long can humans stay in this alternate universe, where dreams of sovereignty destroy everything that surrounds them? Religious over the centuries have often inhabited the ghostly worlds of phantom skies: Brexit voters can hibernate within their own virtual reality – but not forever.
Boris Johnson’s deal with his withdrawal agreement, which he called a “fantastic moment” and sold to voters in the elections, is now canceled. Last week, negotiations turned into a nuclear threat. The fear of the resurgent Faragists weighs more than the threat of the resignation of his justice minister, the departure of his top civil servant, or the outrage of conservative MPs, whose full strength will not be revealed until the final vote next week. But they are now backed by David Cameron and four other former prime ministers. Blame-shifting strategy plan unfolds: Notice how Johnson in the Telegraph accuses the EU of planning a food “blockade”, clearly preparing the way for the scapegoat of dirty foreigners for the disastrous consequences of a no-deal accident.
The closer thst disaster gets, the clearer the reasons why Brexit is self-harming delusion. Apart from the economic damage, the greatest damage is and always has been at the Irish border. No deal means the border must be closed. Brexit had always risked a Good Friday deal, so a trade border along the Irish Sea was the only alternative: bad, but Johnson was fully informed of its implications, the Financial Times reported. This means Northern Ireland is subject to many EU rules.
Look at the damage Brexit has done. A LSE study shows that GDP is 2% lower than it would have been as the Brexit vote resulted in a £ 870 loss per household. But like many Brexit effects, that’s a frog-boiler, not ripped out of wage packages before our eyes. According to Thomas Sampson, assistant professor of international trade at the LSE, Covid-19 is a colossal short-term shock, but Brexit is causing long-term damage.
The motor industry has warned that no deal will lead to a £ 100bn “disaster” with a 10% tariff on cars and 22% on vans. No deal will end the certification that authorizes billions of pounds worth of chemicals to be exported to the EU. Financial services are creating new footholds in Amsterdam, Paris or Dublin, ready to take off from their high-paying and tax-paying jobs if there is no deal: a tipping point that could leave London no longer a big player. Trucking is just one of hundreds of industries that would lose licenses and professional certificates to operate in the EU.
Read more on www.theguardian.com
Why Britain must not become a law unto itself over Brexit
If the bill becomes law unchanged, it would constitute an unprecedented deliberate violation of treaty obligations and international law
The Internal Market Bill, as presented, must go through both the House of Commons and the Lords. But regardless of the outcome, the government’s decision to try to act in this way is a very bad moment for the country’s reputation.
If the bill becomes law unchanged, it would constitute an unprecedented deliberate violation of treaty obligations and international law. What is even more surprising is that these are not some old commitments, but those that were adopted by this government just 11 months ago and approved by the current parliament.
The consequences are serious. Other governments will not trust the UK to meet future commitments. Thus, the ability to enter into trade transactions will be reduced drastically.
Both the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the chair of its Committee on Ways and Means, Richard Neal, have said that no trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom can go through Congress if the United Kingdom violates an international treaty that would affect the Good Friday Agreement.
Disrespect for the rule of law and the value of international agreements has become a new trend. Earlier this month, the Home Office tweeted a video that was widely denounced by leading UK legal authorities for using the term “activist lawyers”. A more accurate statement would simply be “lawyers are doing their job.”
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