EU has tax setting powers

Despite being a complete Euro anorak I had no idea about this before a very informative post by the Village Hampden, but the EU already sets minimum national tax rates. I had up till now believed that this was one area that the EU had kept it's grubby mitts off, despite recent attempts in the ECJ to change that. So it appears that Tony Blair’s 'red line' on tax was in fact a red herring, the EU already had limited tax setting powers. He could not stop them getting them, as they had already been given, and thanks to Aquis Communitaire can never be taken back.

The rest of the post is also interesting and is about how the EU is going to use these powers to force an increase in VAT on many things that currently do not. But it was the fact that the EU has tax setting powers that really blew me away. That is one thing about the EU's slow stealthy usurption of power, there are always new things to find out about.