, Columnist
Cyprus Isn't Taxing Deposits, It's Confiscating Them
When is a tax not a tax?
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When I started to read about the special tax Cyprus was planning to impose on bank deposits as a condition for a European Union bailout of its financial system, I went straight to a dictionary:
"Tax: A fee levied by a government on income, a product or an activity....The purpose of taxation is to finance government expenditure."