Spain's new right-leaning government announced a 2011 deficit blowout Friday as it unveiled spending cuts and taxes increases to claw back 15.1 billion euros ($19.6 billion) in 2012. Freshly installed after beating the Socialists in November 20 elections, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's administration said it had found the books in a bad state.
The US Congress approved a two-month payroll tax cut extension Friday, capping an exhausting year of partisan warfare over taxes and spending that will resume in January, with the economy barely scratching out a recovery and elections on the horizon.
Six men were jailed Wednesday for operating Germany's biggest ever tax carousel, in a scam involving the trading of carbon dioxide emission rights that netted them hundreds of millions of euros. A Briton found to have led the Frankfurt-based gang was jailed for seven years and 10 months.
The White House has taken its battle with Republican lawmakers over a crucial tax extension to Twitter, inviting Americans to weigh in on what the extra $40 per paycheck means to them. US President Barack Obama has scolded Republicans for backing away from a deal to extend the payroll tax cut for an extra two months, warning that the political "brinksmanship" could imperil the already fragile US economy.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for sweeping tax reforms to spur investment-led growth on Wednesday and promised to keep the rouble stable without imposing capital controls. Putin, seeking to return to the Kremlin at a presidential election next March, said he would seek to restore growth rates to the boom-era levels of the past decade while weaning Russia off its dependency on the price of its main export, oil.
Switzerland and the United States are "reasonably close" to reaching an agreement to end a long-running dispute over wealthy Americans using secret Swiss accounts to dodge taxes, the Swiss ambassador to the United States told website swissinfo on Tuesday.
A proposed EU financial transaction tax could disproportionately hurt small and medium-sized companies rather than the banks and hedge funds it is aimed at, who are expected to shift business elsewhere. The tax aims to ensure the financial sector contributes more to the cost of the euro zone crisis while also addressing risky behaviour in some areas of financial markets.
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