The GCC is not Europe
The fall in oil price has encouraged GCC countries to look for alternative revenue options ( VAT accords ratified, May 24). However, the idea of hobbling the relatively small but dynamic and agile GCC economies with European-style socialist revenue-raising methods is surely questionable.
Attaching a tow bar to a powerful and sleek limousine and forcing it to pull a trailer of unnecessary baggage, while reducing the net income of the driver, and then expecting it to perform better, is hardly likely to be successful.
The key elements that GCC countries have in their favour, especially the UAE, are flexibility, agility and adaptability. Throwing away these in favour of short-term government revenue-raising, and then trying to compete in an international marketplace with vastly bigger economies, is surely a big mistake.
None of the downsides have been mentioned: a massive new government VAT department: hundreds of employees and enforcers, an infernal tangle of paperwork and accounting and deadlines strangling business, and an inevitable increase in the cost of living across the board. Does anyone really want this?
Most of all, these European methods are against the straightforwardness of traditional Arab trading and lifestyle.
This is a “stealth tax” – beloved of European redistributionists and their “smoke and mirrors” methodology.
One look at their sclerotic economies and high unem- ployment should dispel any illusions.
They have a big fat goose to pluck. But the UAE is a small goose; you can try to “pluck its feathers without making it hiss”, but in the end the bird needs feathers to survive and over-plucking a small goose will emaciate and disable it.
What will be left then for the dining table of sustenance for the population? Andy Preston, Abu Dhabi The countries the writer has talked about in his article, Economists prefer VAT to other kinds of taxes (May 29), provide a lot for residents in terms of health care, free schools, pensions, support for the poorest and so on.
Life here is already much more expensive than in many other countries. Taxation is not an issue in itself. The cost of living is already high.
There are many in society who will struggle more, sliding further down the scale.
They wouldn’t have job options back home. How will these people be helped by the new taxes? Daniella How, Dubai The author forgot to mention that where there’s income tax, there’s also a pension plan and unemployment benefits. Alina Gradinaru, Abu Dhabi Using Canada as an example of a good tax model is totally stupid.
That GST was on top of the already extortionate PST, and former prime minister Stephen Harper blended the two taxes together ensuring Canadians pay even more in the long run.
Canadians are crippled by taxes. Name withheld by request