Word: austria
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...currency would leap over national priorities and prompt banks to reach across borders for merger partners, the better to compete with America's megabanks. But a funny thing happened on the way to banking consolidation: nothing. Except for a few small deals, such as the 2000 takeovers of Bank Austria by Munich-based HVB, and Unidanmark by Swedish-Finnish lender MeritaNordbanken, banks have preferred to merge with homegrown rivals rather than competitors abroad. Until last week, that is, when the first big European cross-border deal was finally unveiled. Banco Santander Central Hispano, Spain's largest bank, agreed...
DIED. THOMAS KLESTIL, 71, Austrian President; of multiple organ failure, two days before his second six-year term was to end; in Vienna. While in office, he spoke out against Austria's Nazi complicity during World War II and expressed sympathy for Holocaust victims during a trip to Israel, helping improve bilateral relations after revelations that his predecessor, Kurt Waldheim, had served in the Nazi military...
...days in Europe, where taxes and social charges have risen sharply over the past 30 years and are now among the highest in the world. Adding together corporate, personal, social security and value-added tax (VAT), the highest-taxing countries in the world are in Western Europe: France, Belgium, Austria, Italy and the four Scandinavian countries - Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. (Germany and Britain are further down the list, but still ahead of the U.S., Japan, Canada, Mexico and Australia.) This week, a French antitax group is taking out newspaper ads to celebrate "the day of tax liberation." Given...
...social-security charges) and the worker's take-home pay. In Belgium and Germany, this gap peaked at more than 50% last year. In other words, a single person without children, like Moser, on average took home less than half of what her employers paid to employ her. France, Austria, Sweden and Italy were close behind, with tax wedges on or above 45%. Taking away such a big slice of income saps people's motivation to work, while also pushing up the cost of labor and making companies reluctant to create new jobs. "Lots of countries are concerned that Europe...
...value-added tax have more than made up for a slight shortfall in personal income tax. "We could give some advice to [Germany and France]," he says. "The lowering of tax to around 20% doesn't lead to a decline in budget revenue - on the contrary." It certainly caught Austria's attention. In 2005, its corporate-tax rate will drop from 34% to 25%. "When corporate income tax is 16% in Hungary [and] 19% in Slovakia ... then Austria had to do something," said Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser. The country's Socialists and Greens have criticized the decision for burdening...