1/4% Tax on all stock trades pushed in NY Times today

Quote from listedguru:

Obama did make some comments at a speech back in July where he mentioned taxing "far out transactions." The White House never said what he meant by that but if anything it sounded like he was referring to CDO's or something crazy...

-Guru
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I found this article that mentions an Obama press conference in which he mentions speaking favorably of taxing "risky" ventures by Wall Street investors. But it wasn't clear what risky investments he had in mind.


http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...gxvib2-6-gHuhjA5Q&sig2=2b65R3M-EtvX75eVh2uhIQ
 
Quote from Vienna:

Guys, maybe I am missing something: the tax proposed for futures is 0.02%, not 0.25%, correct?

That means 1 ES contract would cost 1120X$50*0.02%= $11.20 per transaction, or $22.40 per RT. This, while high, is not as catastrophic as the example given above...it would mean losing 2 ticks per trade. Right?

:confused:
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there's no way can compromise with our free market.
a smaller percentage is no justification at all.
you could tax EVERYTHING saying it's only a small percentage.

we are already paying taxes with our money invested and gains made.
politicians think they could make a certain amount of money with that transaction tax counting with the transaction volumes that have been going on in the past years.
but if they come up with the transaction tax, then there'll be less trades, less money circulated, less gains made, less services wanted, less jobs in the financial sectors, less taxes all in all paid in the end.

and I wonder why the hell they're always putting equities trading for retail traders at such a disadvantage! there's the pattern daytrading rule already keeping many smaller traders out of the equities markets with the reasoning of protecting them from risks and losses. but there's none of such stupid rule in the futures or the forex markets where you can lose even more money!
 
Quote from KCalhoun:

video posted yesterday:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1372185738&play=1

"Debating whether a financial transactions tax will help boost the economy or not, with Mark Walsh, "Left Jab" co-host and Chris Edwards Director of Tax Policy Studies Cato Institute. "


They talk about "behavior modification". Just what socialists and big government want. Bah.

I hope they don't pass any tax. It would wipe out intraday trading as we know it, from my understanding of what a bad tax like this would do.
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and then there'll be less jobs in the advertising industry as well, because then there'll be no need anymore to bring on those many broker ads.
and with less ads there'll be less sponsoring. and with less sponsoring there'll be........
 
Quote from C#2.0:

Here are a few of the things we can do:

1. Write your Senators.

2. Write the IMF.

3. Stay up-to-date and current on all of the relevant news.

***

Everyone is hopefully doing all of the above, to the best degree they can. While this is seasideheights thread, and he was (and is) a strong force against the financial transaction tax at its earliest stages, this nasty little problem isn't going to go away by ignoring it or putting our heads in the sand.

We're going to have to continue fighting this "grass roots" style. Stay abreast of the issues, write Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies at Cato Institutue. Do what you can, how you can, while you can.
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donating to the Cato Institute is definitely a great idea.
http://www.cato.org/
I think it's even very important and vital that we support them.
 
Quote from listedguru:

Obama did make some comments at a speech back in July where he mentioned taxing "far out transactions." The White House never said what he meant by that but if anything it sounded like he was referring to CDO's or something crazy...

-Guru
More...

This is probably what the fox news article was referring to regarding Obama and the transactions tax:

"Obama Proposes New Transaction Fees for Financial Firms' Riskiest Investments"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124831738512274811.html

"President Barack Obama said for the first time that the government might assess new fees against financial companies engaging in what he labeled "far-out transactions," in order to protect taxpayers from future bailouts."

"Mr. Obama on Wednesday compared the possible fees to the assessments that more than 8,000 banks pay the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to guarantee deposits. He didn't describe what sorts of transactions might trigger the fees, though the way he described it suggests the proposal could cover exotic instruments such as credit derivatives that some believe played a key role in escalating the financial crisis. He also indicated that the fees might be levied against transactions the government wants to discourage."

"So if you guys want to do them, then you got to put something into the kitty to make sure that if you screw up, it's not taxpayer dollars that have to pay for it," Mr. Obama said in response to a question at a press conference. "It's dollars coming out of your profits."

"Administration officials declined to elaborate on Mr. Obama's remarks regarding the fees. It is unclear if there is a concrete proposal pending, or what the details would be."

-Guru
 
Quote from Vienna:

Guys, maybe I am missing something: the tax proposed for futures is 0.02%, not 0.25%, correct?

That means 1 ES contract would cost 1120X$50*0.02%= $11.20 per transaction, or $22.40 per RT. This, while high, is not as catastrophic as the example given above...it would mean losing 2 ticks per trade. Right?

:confused:
More...

You are missing something, although it is subtle...

Consider Eurodollar futures, for example (similar results for other futures and derivatives)...current bid-ask spread is 0.005. If a 0.02% tax was imposed even the most aggressive market maker would have to incorporate an additional 0.02 in both bid and ask just to cover the cost of the tax.

At the very least this would widen the spread from 0.005 to at least 0.045. So you could argue it is an 800% tax not a 0.002% tax.

Derivatives volumes will drop 70-95% if even a 0.002% tax is introduced, which is clearly catastrophic. In Sweden they introduced this tax and tax revenue generated was 5% of what they expected and had sold to taxpayers beforehand...options trading simply disappeared altogether...there are several posts earlier in the thread that discuss this in more detail.

And as the other posters suggest, 0.02% or even 0.002% would be just the beginning. Rather than realizing that they had made mistake and misled the public by pushing through a transactions tax politicians would likely try and save face and just keep increasing the tax to 'further dampen dangerous speculation'...
 
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