Investing in Our Future, One Transaction at a Time—How a Financial Transaction (FTT) tax would work–from the experts
Sarah Anderson, Director of Global Economy Project, Inst. for Policy Studies: Many countries already have some form of a financial transaction tax, including those with strong and fast-growing financial markets, such as the UK, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and India. Recently, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia agreed on the range of financial assets that will be taxed and how the revenue will be captured for what will be the first regional financial transaction tax. Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research: Even small taxes on trading can raise large amounts of money. The Joint Economic Committee calculated that a tax of just 0.03 percent imposed on all financial transactions could raise more than $40 billion a year. A scaled tax with a rate of 0.2 percent on stock trades, and 0.01 percent on derivatives, could raise more than $110 billion a year. Several bills are working their way through Congress. Worldwide, FTTs have the potential to raise up to $300 billion in annual revenue. Susan Harley, Deputy Director, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division: The tax will help avoid market meltdowns by cutting the profit margins of high-frequency trading. Computerized trading by milliseconds is not long-term, job creating capital investment—it’s gambling with the integrity of the market–more than once […]