Comments on: Now That Europe’s Got A Robin Hood Tax Let’s Not Have One

By: The Real Stig

The Real Stig — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:23:22 +0000

Why didn’t I see that! – of course – businesses pass on the cost of the taxes they have to pay so really, we’d be better off if we didn’t tax them at all, then everything would be so much cheaper.

By: Yampster

Yampster — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:10:16 +0000

And what makes you think that they will not ‘legally’ avoid paying this one. Or at least pass it on to the poor punters down at the lower end of the food chain

By: The Real Stig

The Real Stig — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:36:21 +0000

If large corporations weren’t quite so active and successful at ‘legally’ avoiding paying taxes in the EU (and worldwide0) there might not have been such impetus for this tax.

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:28:03 +0000

“A financial transaction taxation is used for a variety of purposes, one of which is to curb “excessive speculation by uninformed financial traders” which can lead to increased market volatility ”

This is the assertion, yes. The important question is actually whether the assertion is true or not. And it isn’t.

You should try reading around some of the critiques of the Robin Hood Tax. The general conclusion is that lower liqudity will lead to greater price volatility, not less.

By: Bimmerman

Bimmerman — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:51:15 +0000

I think you’ll find this most educating – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax
A financial transaction taxation is used for a variety of purposes, one of which is to curb “excessive speculation by uninformed financial traders” which can lead to increased market volatility – something which we are acutely aware of in the present time. It’s a mechanism which has been used in many countries over many years and has been well studied. It is a device that many monetary bodies, including the IMF, have espoused and its introduction is in no way experimental. We already have some (very small and limited!) transaction taxes. Increasing these further would bring the financial sector a little way towards the level of taxation everyone else has to bear for the current crisis. So why the fuss? Could be because the City doesn’t want to pay anymore tax. So effectively, the rest of the economy has to pay higher taxes to subsidise the financial sector – after all, we wouldn’t want those rich folk who contributed considerably to the current economic crisis, changing their gambling habits, now would we.

By: Yampster

Yampster — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:46:30 +0000

We don’t have to wait for 2019. We have the example of Sweden’s unilateral attempt in the 80′s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax

Bad news for the Swedish economy, good news for the UK as most of their trading moved offshore to London. Let’s hope the same thing happens again.