EU Commission Considers Direct EU Taxes

Secret plan for Euro income tax

Proposals included in a draft report by the Commission on the budget include phasing out the UK's rebate:

"The justification for the existence of the remaining correction [rebate] in favour of the United Kingdom, and corrections on this correction, disappears progressively.

In any event, the ultimate objective is to eliminate all the correction mechanisms."

Other suggestions are to slash the CAP budget (French farmers, for whose benefit the whole thing was devised, are already sharpening their pitchforks); and raising direct tax from "communication charges (SMS), financial transactions and levies related to aviation [departure tax or kerosene]." A lot more can also be filched away out of anything that comes under the green/emissions-reducing category.

Not to be forgotten, of course, is the fact that the EU's budgets for the last dozen years have not been signed off by auditors because they're a mess.