Nov 4, 2009

Beckham's law repealed?

What does Beckham have to do with economics?As reported here, the Spanish parliament is about to repeal the famous "Beckham's law. What is it? It was a law passed in Spain in 2005 aimed at attracting "wealthy" foreigners to the "peninsula iberica". In practice, by moving to Spain, you could choose to pay a flat 25% tax rate on your income, for a period up to five years. A good deal if your salary happens to be close to that of a football star like Beckham, who in fact had moved to Real Madrid in 2003, and was among the very first to adopt this new friendly tax regime. Now the proposal to repeal it is being discussed in the parliament, a decision which is not so strange if you look at the latest number for the spanish budget deficit (6% of GDP). Of course, this is making the spanish teams angry, and a protest is under way...how do you call it in spanish?

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