LIBERALS SPELL LOVE: T-A-X

Not content with taxing its' own citizens, France seeks to enlarge the tax base by suggesting that there should be an international tax and will try to pitch the idea at the next G-8 meeting reports The Australian:

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac made a new call today for an "international tax", saying such a levy would help generate funds to help poor countries and those hit by disasters such as the Asian tsunami.

"These events stress the need to increase public aid towards development and to find innovative financing mechanisms such as an international taxation," Mr Chirac said in a New Year speech to the Paris diplomatic corps.

He said France would press the international tax idea this year at meetings of the Group of Eight - the G7 rich countries plus Russia - and at the United Nations, but gave no details of his proposals.

Of course, this is an idea that has been kicking around for years and prior to Chirac picking up and trying to run with this ball, The Center for Individual Freedom reported on Kofi Annan's efforts to find support for an international tax last summer:

Like a bad sequel to a rotten horror movie, the debate over global taxation once again is rearing its ugly head — courtesy of the United Nations. And, despite lacking the requisite hockey mask and chain saw, the seemingly countless proposals for the imposition of global taxes are truly terrifying.

In July, Inter Presse news service reported that a top U.N. official was preparing a new study that will outline numerous global tax proposals to be considered by the General Assembly at its September meeting. The proposals will likely include everything from global taxes on e-mails and Internet use to a global gas tax and levies on airline travel. If adopted, American taxpayers could wind up paying hundreds of billions of dollars each year to the United Nations.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is among those leading the charge, having stated that he "strongly supports finding new sources of funding" for the U.N. through global taxes, according to Inter Presse. In fact, Annan made very clear his support for the imposition of global taxes in a 2001 Technical Note that he authored for a U.N. conference. "The need to finance the provision of global public goods in an increasingly globalized world also adds new urgency to the need for innovative new sources of financing," Annan wrote. The Note goes on to describe and evaluate the merits of several global tax proposals.

I, once again, am forced to ask - what are the odds that a Canadian Liberal government will not support any UN/French initiatives on international TAXATION?