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

Quote from southall:

Tax Juggernaut lol... Enhanced co operation is an an 11 wheeler and the wheels are going to fall off. Just 3 need to come off and whole thing collapses.
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The EC-11 are in a tight spot now. Where do they go from here?

There seem to be to be only three options:

1. Scrap the FTT and perhaps make a pledge to examine alternative bank taxes. The only economically credible choice but politically very damaging. Unlikely.

2. Try to thrash out a watered down tax that all eleven can live with, perhaps like the French FTT. Still economically damaging but politically survivable. No guarantee that they can find a tax agreeable to all anyway. Possible.

3. Do what Mervyn King recently suggested will happen - propose a period of reflection and further study. Economically a cop out, politically survivable and in all likelihood killing off the FTT for good (who of the eleven will come back to this with any enthusiasm?). Highly plausible (IMO).
 
[...]few in Brussels expect the FTT to be implemented as currently envisaged; privately banks are being told as much by some eurozone officials[...]

[...]Special treatment for the repo market seems inevitable, either through exemptions or much lower tax rates. The dilemma in Brussels is that a less ambitious UK-style “stamp duty” would hit retail products such as equities while sparing the complex derivatives that are the FTT’s main target. “They are searching for a graceful exit but it isn’t easy to find,” says one senior EU official[...]

[...]In Brussels, no outcome is being ruled out, and some kind of “Robin Hood tax” could still emerge. “It has dawned on everyone that this is difficult, risky,” says one senior official involved in the talks. “But we have to do something. We’ve said too much.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8cdc3e6-bef9-11e2-87ff-00144feab7de.html
 
Quote from Explorer:

[...]few in Brussels expect the FTT to be implemented as currently envisaged; privately banks are being told as much by some eurozone officials[...]

[...]Special treatment for the repo market seems inevitable, either through exemptions or much lower tax rates. The dilemma in Brussels is that a less ambitious UK-style “stamp duty” would hit retail products such as equities while sparing the complex derivatives that are the FTT’s main target. “They are searching for a graceful exit but it isn’t easy to find,” says one senior EU official[...]

[...]In Brussels, no outcome is being ruled out, and some kind of “Robin Hood tax” could still emerge. “It has dawned on everyone that this is difficult, risky,” says one senior official involved in the talks. “But we have to do something. We’ve said too much.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8cdc3e6-bef9-11e2-87ff-00144feab7de.html
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Sounds like the wheels are coming off this thing (LOL). I guess we'll see what happens with the German elections later this year. Let's hope they just stick a fork in it:)

-Guru
 
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