Following my earlier piece having a go at Newsweek I sent the following letter to various editors of that magazine:

Sirs,
Re this article :
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4988113/site/newsweek/
and this comment in it:
” Consider the value-added taxes that were “harmonized” all over Europe during the 1990s. They benefit fast-food chains, since the tax on takeaway is only 5.5 percent, while they penalize sit-down restaurants, whether humble bistros or haute cuisine, which pay 19.6 percent. When President Jacques Chirac ran for re-election in 2002, he promised to reduce the tax, but such is the nature of the new Europe that all 25 countries will have to approve the measure for it to take effect—in 2006. The government is instituting other complicated tax breaks and stopgap measures in the meantime to try to calm the restive restaurateurs and in hopes of creating employment. But Daguin is deeply skeptical. “If the French were under the same fiscal regime as the United States, we’d be able to create twice as many jobs,” he says. “
A fairly basic error on the part of your reporters I am afraid. VAT rates in the EU have not been harmonized. Not in any way shape or form.
Such mistakes undermine the credibility of the mostly sound points that the rest of the article discusses. For a full discussion of the error I point you here :
http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2004/05/vat_harmonisati.html
If you should need writers in the future who understand the minutiae of the EU I am available for hire on a freelance basis.

yours
Tim Worstall

I rather doubt I’ll get a response but I’ll keep you informed.