Friday 23 December 2011

Plucky Little Luxembourg

Luxembourg, seat of Amazon and thus source of the very low rate of VAT on books transmitted to Kindle devices, is apparently planning to flout EU law and reduce that rate even further, possibly to the zero rating on printed books. Taxing books is a particularly unpleasant practice, as I am sure that all regular readers will agree.

The world's last sovereign Grand Duchy is a lot bigger than Europe's last great Medieval oligarchy, which the Queen may not enter without special permission, where the laws enacted by Parliament do not apply, and where the resident population of British Citizens is denied democratic representation both by that means and by means of municipal arrangements which grant far more votes to foreign companies than to British human beings.

The parliamentary and municipal democracy that Wall Street's tax haven on our shores so noticeably lacks is enjoyed in full by the subjects of His Royal Highness by the Grace of God, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Duke of Nassau, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Count of Sayn, Königstein, Katzenelnbogen and Diez, Burgrave of Hammerstein, Lord of Mahlberg, Wiesbaden, Idstein, Merenberg, Limburg and Eppstein.

Furthermore, the 17 NATO AWACS aeroplanes are registered as aircraft of Luxembourg. Purely a matter of convenience? Those days are gone, sweetie. Those days are gone.

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