Thread by @hhesterm

It is time to point out that articles blaming the EU and failing to do any research are not a UK monopoly. Here’s an example by @janfleischhauer in the @SPIEGELONLINE . (Thread) spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE The article is on a recent realisation by the author: EU officials in Germany pay no German taxes. The author writes he know many arguments against the EU, but was not aware of organised tax evasion. So how did he become aware of this outrage?

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE A friend of his works at the European Patent Office in Munich. And she told him. That’s the first four paras of the article. That’s beautiful. One small problem: the EPO has nothing to do with the EU. It’s a different international organisation.

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE How do you know? Its website, wikipedia - look at the member states and find out they’re different from the EU (including, e.g. Switzerland). This is not rocket science. But there is worse to come: I suspect @janfleischhauer knows this is wrong and wrote it nevertheless.

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE Why? Because amongst all the attacks against Brussels there’s this sentence: “The EU might not have direct influence on the EPO”. Yup. He uses a different international organisation to attack the EU, never says it’s a different organisation, but writes this sentence.

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE OK you might say after reading the article. But he also mentions the ECB. Right. And it is indeed right that ECB salaries are not taxed in Germany. But the fact that this is true for EU salaries as well as EPO salaries should make you curious. Why aren’t those salaries taxed?

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE It is, indeed, not an EU think, but normal for international organisations. So why is it UN employee salaries are not taxed in the US, WTO salaries not in Switzerland, EU salaries not in Belgium etc?

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE Because the salaries are paid by all member states. If the host state of the institution could tax those salaries, the member states would subsidise the host state. Botswana, as a UN member, would subsidise the US. Bangladesh as a WTO member would pay Switzerland.

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE Quite apart from that absurdity, imagine how difficult it would be to agree on a host state. What’s the solution? Exempt them from the taxes in the host state. You think their salaries are too high? Pay them less.
None of that is in the article.

@janfleischhauer @SPIEGELONLINE And the sad truth: His article reaches thousands of readers who will be fooled by the apparent logic, lacking the necessary background. My tweet will reach 15 people. That said: I love all 15 of them.