GLOBAL tax on financial transactions? possible?

[grandma]

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58099
Just the tips copied here.....

...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed the idea of a "global" tax on stock trades and other financial transactions, saying the estimated $150 billion in annual revenue from such a tax could be used to help fund more stimulus spending.
...(HR4191) currently before Congress would have to be made "global" to keep U.S. investors from taking their business overseas and out of taxable reach.
...A $150 billion tax on financial transactions will fall on millions of hardworking Americans who are saving” wrote Reps. Michael McMahon (D-N.Y.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), and Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.) in the letter, which is still being circulated on Capitol Hill, a copy of which was obtained by CNSNews.com.
...The three Democrats said that the American version of the proposal would not exempt middle class Americans, .. brokers would pass the cost down to everyday investors, pension, and retirement funds.
A tax on stock transactions would affect every single person who owns and invests in stocks from small business owners to senior citizens.”

 

[alevin]

I wrote to my Dem rep months ago when this idea first started floating around. I told him it was a really really bad idea and that it would definitely threaten middle class people's retirement. Glad to see there are other Dem reps out there who get it.

 

[James48843]

It's not a new idea at all. James Tobin first proposed a global transaction tax in the 1970's. The idea has been discussed at the G20 level for some time:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN3015550520091130

You already pay a transaction tax today- it's called an SEC fee equal to 0.0033% on every stock sale now.

Here are the countries that already do it:

The UK has long had a securities transactions tax known as a stamp duty on the order of 0.3%. Sweden introduced a 0.50 per cent tax on the purchase and sale of equities in 1984, and kept it until 1991. (Froot and Campbell, studied these two examples in a 1994 book that I edited.) India introduced a securities transactions tax in 2004 and Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong did so earlier; in these cases there were not significant reductions in either price volatility or market turnover. Other countries that have had financial turnover taxes of at least 0.10% include Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, and Singapore. In addition there are other countrires that have smaller trading fees.
Even the United States imposes an SEC fee of .0033%. Thus our virginity is already lost.


That's an extract from a story several months ago over on "Seeking Alpha"--


Here is the rest of that article: http://seekingalpha.com/article/97964-why-not-a-transaction-tax