Economy

Lithuania ranks 6th in the 2021 International Tax Competitiveness Index presented by the US-based Tax Foundation. Estonia maintains the top ranking and the neighboring Latvia comes second, followed by New Zealand, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

The 20th century could be referred to as the century of inflation. Monstrous inflation took place in many countries, such as hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s, in Hungary after World War II, or in Zimbabwe and Venezuela in the recent past.

The pandemic has brought the peacefully sleeping world back from its slumber, disrupting its long-term welfare plans and forcing it to look for answers to a multitude of uncomfortable questions. COVID-19 reminded our civilization of mortality of a man.

Low quality of law-making has so far been the result of disregard of law-making standards and requirements rather than a lack of them. A recent study from the LFMI shows that almost one in two pieces of legislation is passed without impact assessment.

Unfortunately, we will not celebrate the fifth year of the Bureaucracy Index in the Czech Republic with a reduction in the administrative burden. The bureaucratic burden on small businesses increased by 49 hours year-on-year to 272 hours.

The cost of the state\'s family policy reached PLN 70 billion in 2020. By comparison, spending on countering the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigating the effects of the economic lockdown amounted to PLN 103 billion, and spending on defense amounted to PLN 42 billion.

The COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by unprecedented state interventions – from restrictions on basic individual freedoms to significant increases in public spending, among others, to compensate companies for the effects of the shutdown.

Within the framework of the \"Polish Deal\", PiS is raising the tax burden on income from rental housing drastically and without a transition period. In this way, the government wants to slow down the growth of property prices and, at the same time, increase budget revenues. This is a wrong direction.

Freedom, private property, competition, and the rule of law proved to be more successful than an all-controlling bureaucracy. In a way, the division of Germany constituted a large-scale real-world test for the long-term effects of free markets vs. a centrally planned economy.

People will stick with cigarettes, which, although more harmful than the alternative, will bring more taxes into the state coffers. After three years, tobacco tax increases are back on the table. In English, it is known as the \"sin tax\". Similar to the tax on alcohol or beer. The public perceives these taxes as a way for consumers of addictive substances to \'pay\' for their sins. The truth is that smokers pay a lot.