251–260 of 384 posts
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English common law is the basis for the American and Irish systems. Continental European countries, including Malta, are different.
What does the legal system (common law vs continental) have to do with the parent comment?
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I will have to mention that this varies all over, especially the bit older generation (not exclusively though) also has some weird quirks language wise. So while they might speak and understand the English language quite well the are some parts missing. As an example I like to mention the phrasing of Bolkenstein (a Dutch National/EU politician) of economic handouts to people as "Golden showers". So while proficiency…
To be fair, we in the UK often talk about the government giving us a golden shower as well. We do phrase it "slightly" differently though :-/
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The Netherlands has the highest English proficiency in the world [0] (among non-native speaking countries) so I imagine it would be a compelling choice. [0] https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/
Yes, though still not quite as compelling, because you still have to speak Dutch eg at the playground.
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Why? This comment is not about Berlin or Paris, it is mentioning then as examples of non English speaking cities. Is the author supposed to mention every city in Europe?
Paris is not really much of English speaking city. (I travel to Paris often)
A big difference between the larger and smaller EU countries though is unrelated. The smallest countries don't have the budget for dubbing movies and TV series. This really helps with English proficiency in the smaller countries such as the Netherlands.
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A VAT isn’t a sales tax though. I think you can subtract the cost of goods since they were already taxed? Compared with income tax, there are fewer expenses you can subtract from revenue, but there still are some. But since prices will adjust, the question is really one of tax incidence. Who gets to raise prices to cover their taxes? And that’s complicated.
You can subtract the cost of goods but you can’t subtract operating expenses like R&D.
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Governments want to tax profits rather than revenues. A tax on revenues would kill a lot of high growth businesses.
And yet they tax individuals on our revenues and not our profits …
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Having lived in the Netherlands (Eindhoven - not even Amsterdam) I can confirm that the English spoken there was superior to the English I was raised in in rural Ontario where my teachers said "warshing" instead of washing. The Dutch have an incredibly faculty for language and I admire it.
I will have to mention that this varies all over, especially the bit older generation (not exclusively though) also has some weird quirks language wise. So while they might speak and understand the English language quite well the are some parts missing. As an example I like to mention the phrasing of Bolkenstein (a Dutch National/EU politician) of economic handouts to people as "Golden showers". So while proficiency…
Surely all this does is makes offshore tax havens all the more attractive? Sure, some of them have signed up (i.e. Panama), but if they are not ditching the territorial taxation system, it changes absolutely nothing for them, and even if it would, Panama absolutely does not care about enforcing the exising law regarding taxation. Sure, the companies will have to pay a bit more to their lawyers, but the way I see it,…
For example I doubt airbnb could pull its Ireland trick on EU countries from Panama (otherwise they'd already be doing it)
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Why?
There's a lot of weird accents here in the UK. Even cockney sounds odd, and that's local to London. In the same place you'll meet people from Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Scotland and so on, all with distinctive accents that are not so easy for your ordinary American or second language speaker.
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Yes, though still not quite as compelling, because you still have to speak Dutch eg at the playground.
It's worth mentioning that I'm Ireland most schools teach in Irish, not English.