1/4% Tax on all stock trades pushed in NY Times today
- Thread starter seasideheights
- Start date
The important thing is how many democrats come out against it, Republicans have been toeing the party line (smaller government, less taxation). It does not look like it will make it past the Senate even if the House finds a way to get it there. On top of that the administration is not for it unless it is global.
A bill like this will have to pass the House, the Senate, and then the Executive Branch.
There are 2 Senators per State, 435 in the House, and then the President in the Executive Branch.
Wall Street or Main Street? Time for certain Dems to decide
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2...r-Main-Street-Time-for-certain-Dems-to-decide
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2...r-Main-Street-Time-for-certain-Dems-to-decide
The real Wall treet will get broker-dealer or MM exemptions when the bill is done.
It is little traders on main street who would themselves w/o jobs. So will many brokerage support staff.
Traders pay capital gains when they make money. This bill wants to tax the little guy even if he is losing or has no gain.
And how the about the tax loss in capital gains onc ethis bill is implemented?
Mr GreenTraderTax, please do point out the that less capital gains tax would be collected if this bill is passed in your petition. Thanks for your work in this.
I thought this was an excellent comment by "nextstep" from the link above. The last three lines, I feel, are very compelling.
The effect of this tax change will be felt by those with pensions, retirement accounts and taxpayers through government employee pension funds with government guaranteed benefits (a major reason why many states are in financial trouble).
This is through the effect it will have on financial markets:
- The value of stocks, bonds, etc. will go down, as expected returns will decline from this cost. So their account values will go down. So even if there are offsets so one does not directly pay the tax, you will not escape the lower value in your account. This will hurt the average senior citizen.
- Markets will be more unstable, especially in a crisis, as there will be far few buyers - this is especially bad for retirement accounts that are not very large, as they cannot tolerate the larger decline and are forced to sell at much lower prices. This will hurt the average senior citizen hard.
- As the tax stops high frequency trading, the spread cost between what one can buy and sell for increases the transaction cost by much more than the 0.25%. Smaller companies will be especially hit hard. This will hurt the average senior citizen.
- The large scale loss of middle class jobs in the securities industry to being outsourced to avoid the tax, as financial trading leaves the US, taking the middle class jobs with them. The fat cats can live anywhere they want and do their transactions anywhere they want, while the middle class jobs go where the transaction are executed.
- More investment dollars that go into companies to produce jobs will go instead to emerging market countries instead, as this tax increases the relative attractiveness of investing in businesses outside the US. This hurts those who need to work for a living.
A real tax on Wall Street would look like a tax on the assets of the firm itself (not those who invest through Wall Street), possibly with a higher rate on those who fall near or over the too big to fail size.
Wall Street easily passes on the cost of a transaction tax to Main Street and avoid it for themselves - while my above tax on Wall Street actually is imposed on Wall Street and they bear the burden.
There will absolutely be no consensus on this until the IMF reports on their analysis of all proposals submitted. They are to reveal their findings in April 2010. But no matter what their findings are, the U.S. is adamantly opposed to this tax, and as far as the U.K. goes. Gordon Brown will be out of office very soon. The conservative party candidate expected to become the next U.K. Prime Minister (David Cameron), is also opposed to a tobin tax. Bottom line, this tax isn't happening.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091209-709723.html
Finally a big firm lobbying against the Trading Tax, TD AMERITRADE
Finally a big firm lobbying against the Trading Tax, TD AMERITRADE
I think a lot of the heavy hitter lobbyist groups for Wall Street are working hard behind the scenes to have this defeated. The majority of the media coverage we've seen on this issue are from liberal unions, economists, politicians, etc... that want this tax. I think Wall Street is doing this the right way, as they won't really come out in public/media to denounce this, as it would probably add fuel to the fire.
One thing we need to brace for is when Wall Street announces their end of year bonuses. This is expected soon, and will certainly stir up the pot even more for these activists that want the tax. But I have no doubt that the lobbyist's for Wall Street are actively engaged with the appropriate legislators to kill these transaction tax proposals.
