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

Quote from Robert A. Green:


http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone/index?a=obamas-bank-tax-is-unconstitutional-2010-1
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I'm not a legal expert, but I don't think "No legit purpose" necessarily falls down in the case of the bank levy...

the recognition that "large" banks are (implicitly) underwritten by the taxpayer might well constitute a legit reason for paying an upfront 'insurance fee'...

It's debatable, not a slam dunk at all, but of course the banks have little to lose from trying.
 
The insurance levy seems the most legal of all choices discussed. My earlier posts about the bank fee said it made some business and political sense. And it was preferable for our cause instead of a FTT. The President's budget will be read and analyzed this week and Congress will weigh in with the new 41/59 dynamic. The IMF report is expected in April and indications call for an insurance levy rather than TARP Bailout-type payback. Will US banks be charged an insurance levy on top of the Obama bank fee? There is much G20 coordination to do. How can this go smoothly considering global climate control debacles? Let's see if the Senate balks at the President's bank fee. The budget debate is just starting. 10% GDP deficit's sound Greece-like to me. Even with all this remaining uncertainty, I think the FTT is on it's thinnest ice in a year. From iPhone
 
New taxes on the financial industry, multinational firms and other businesses would raise more
than $400 billion over the next 10 years, under the budget plan released by President Barack Obama Monday.


Tax them into oblivion. This group is the biggest bunch of morons we've ever produced.
 
We will get back to basic fiscal-politics 101 this week. The Democrats will say let's raise taxes - on the bad guys who deserve it of course (the big-bad-banks and global-corporations).

The Republicans will say let's cut spending way beyond the window-dressing the President offers in his budget - the 15 billion per year freeze in non-defense-entitlement spending.

The President knew he had to pass health care before his State of the Union and the unveiling of his budget. Now, with the filibuster back on the table (thanks to Scott Brown), only a nuclear-option (51 vote with Vice President-backing) can prevail on GOP-contested items and the nuclear-option would be political suicide for the Democrats in the upcoming mid terms. It's fair to say that the mid term elections started in earnest today. The health-care third-rail may be too hot to touch this week. We shall see.

The Republican's may not want to focus on defending banks in particular (although they will), but now they can focus on the big picture of raising taxes on business. Can you smell gridlock?
 
You will like this.

Swedish Finance Minister Anders discussing other ideas for taxing banks with Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Washington DC, and Charles Dumas, Chairman of Lombard Street Research in London (informs Baker TT “dead as a doornail” –
(Baker 8 mins into recording)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p005z35l
 
2011 Budget - first quick comments

No FTT mentioned from our first look.

We noticed one item that specifically affects dealers, but probably not traders. See the 2011 Budget at http://www.treas.gov/offices/tax-policy/library/greenbk10.pdf , refer to page 32 of the PDF file (36/153). "Require ordinary treatment of Income form the day-to-day dealer activities for certain dealers in commodities, derivatives and other securities.”

This tax law change - dealers pay ordinary tax rates on 1256 trading, with no 60/40 allowed - was included as a proposal in the 2010 budget. We covered it on our blog in May 2009.

In this year's 2011 budget, this proposal seems be passed as law - after Congressional approval first of course.

We will review the budget and tax publisher's summaries over the next few days and offer more blog comments then.
 
Quote from andometer:

You will like this.

Swedish Finance Minister Anders discussing other ideas for taxing banks with Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Washington DC, and Charles Dumas, Chairman of Lombard Street Research in London (informs Baker TT “dead as a doornail” –
(Baker 8 mins into recording)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p005z35l
More...

Good find, thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks to a couple on this forum for joining me in editing the Wikipedia page for Tobin tax. One of you had the smart idea to create a new 'Political opinion' section. I have now shunted this section down to the bottom of the page and shifted a lot of the pro FTT crap into this section. Feel free to delete this political crap...I am trying not to 'stand out' too much whilst continually chipping away at the Pro Tobin tax arguments.

What we need is a little more 'sand in the wheels' and space between our recent efforts and the 'Pro Tobin' editing that is likely to emerge in response. Aspiring Wikipedia editors are invited to join us... Even if you make BAD EDITS by not following Wiki guidelines that is good because it will distract from our good edits that would otherwise be deleted.

The page has been transformed from a couple of months back but there is much that can still be done to show up the weakness in the 'pro Tobin' case, and really drive home our recent successes.

We need to stress how a Tobin tax would be a pre-cursor to the awful idea of a Global tax/ Federal World Government, whilst also emphasizing that supporters include anti capitalists, the likes of Fidel Castro and other left wing groups. By association with such nut jobs the likes of De fazio and Brown will be even more discredited and hopefully we can isolate them as such.
 
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