Would Bernie Sanders Kill Trading As We Know It?
- Thread starter tommo
- Start date
not at all. I sold out too.
But the incentives are there because of the easy money policies allowed bank balance sheets to grow over the last 30 years. The government should find a way to encourage people to do other things. In the 70's Wall Street guys weren't Wall Street guys. That only changed in the 80s. In 1987 Lehman had a balance sheet of 150MM. In 2008, I bet the smallest trading book was more than 150MM (and there were prob a 1000 different trading books).
All countries need money and have huge debts. So all countries are looking where they can take money.
The world champions are the Belgian politicians. Since 1/1/2016 there is a speculation tax. If you buy and sell within a period of 6 months you have to pay 33% taxes. AND losses cannot be deducted! This is a unique system that exist nowhere else. So if you make no losing trades you pay 33%. If you make losing trades you can pay to over 100% of taxes.
Example: 10 winning trades for a total amount of $2500, and 5 losing trades for a total amount of $1000. taxes to pay: 33% on $2500 equals $825.
Your net result is: +$2500 -$1000 -$825 or $675. Paid taxes: $825 or 55%!!!
This is not a joke, this is reality.
If you have some bad luck you pay taxes on your losses.
Example with results of a series of trades: +$1000; -$250; -$250; +$750; +$250; -$450; -$275; +$500; -$345; -$150.
Total result profit $780- $825 (33% taxes on $2500) leaves us -$45 or $825 taxes on a NET LOSS of $45!!!
Volume is already going down and people moved already 50% of the taxed trades in other products in the first month. After the first month the marketleader calculated Eur 50,000 taxes for the government, but the government calculated that these taxes should generate 34 million in 2016! So stil 33,950,000 euro to go the next 11 months. At the same time other taxes that were also applied dropped too as the products they were taxing is traded much less and will soon become zero volume. Net it will be a losing taxing system.
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/videozone_ENG/1.2470264
The world champions are the Belgian politicians. Since 1/1/2016 there is a speculation tax. If you buy and sell within a period of 6 months you have to pay 33% taxes. AND losses cannot be deducted! This is a unique system that exist nowhere else. So if you make no losing trades you pay 33%. If you make losing trades you can pay to over 100% of taxes.
Example: 10 winning trades for a total amount of $2500, and 5 losing trades for a total amount of $1000. taxes to pay: 33% on $2500 equals $825.
Your net result is: +$2500 -$1000 -$825 or $675. Paid taxes: $825 or 55%!!!
This is not a joke, this is reality.
If you have some bad luck you pay taxes on your losses.
Example with results of a series of trades: +$1000; -$250; -$250; +$750; +$250; -$450; -$275; +$500; -$345; -$150.
Total result profit $780- $825 (33% taxes on $2500) leaves us -$45 or $825 taxes on a NET LOSS of $45!!!
Volume is already going down and people moved already 50% of the taxed trades in other products in the first month. After the first month the marketleader calculated Eur 50,000 taxes for the government, but the government calculated that these taxes should generate 34 million in 2016! So stil 33,950,000 euro to go the next 11 months. At the same time other taxes that were also applied dropped too as the products they were taxing is traded much less and will soon become zero volume. Net it will be a losing taxing system.
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/videozone_ENG/1.2470264
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The less efficient is the market, the higher are the profit margins.
Congress has the power to tax, not the president. Nobody would vote for something that would kill the economy as we know it.
"Kill the economy?" Why the hyperbole? But, yeah, the chances of FTT getting past Congress are slim.
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I don't think it's hyperbole. In other cases where FTT was introduced trading volume dropped 93% (Sweden). So that's pretty much every US based broker, exchange, clearing house having major major profits issues.
Then add in secondary effects of the loss in capital gains taxes from the trading and brokerage industry.
But most importantly the inability for commodity companies, mortgage companies, anyone doing international trade to hedge effectively and the knock on effects that has. I know traders that work for Cargill and Glencore that said they couldn't properly hedge anymore if this tax came in.
Of course this is based on previous examples of where FTT has been introduced (and almost immediately reversed) and US case may not play out exactly the same.
But it's serious stuff
All taxes usually start at low levels and then over the years incrementally increase for any given reason - tax X to fund a new war, "what, you hate the troops? pay up" and when said war is over, the tax isn't removed or significantly reduced; tax Y to fund infrastructure or healthcare because "we are doing this for all your benefit" etc.
This is the problem with FTT, while initially it might be relatively small, it will become huge until at one point trading revenues have all moved away from US. It's not like US is the only modern, stable economy.
Like tommo mentioned, there are already examples where a FTT failed miserably but of course Bernie will never mention that and the simpletons who are voting will never do any research.
This is the problem with FTT, while initially it might be relatively small, it will become huge until at one point trading revenues have all moved away from US. It's not like US is the only modern, stable economy.
Like tommo mentioned, there are already examples where a FTT failed miserably but of course Bernie will never mention that and the simpletons who are voting will never do any research.
Again with those pesky facts, something you really need to work on there tommo. Where exactly did your 93% drop in trading volume in Sweden number come from? According to the most referenced academic paper regarding the matter, "50% of all Swedish trading had moved to London." (http://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/fil...ial-transaction-tax-review-and-assessment.pdf). Ironically the UK had and still has an FTT called the stamp duty, so the Sweden experiment points more to poor design then damning the FTT idea itself (which I still personally think is a bad idea).
So did you make up the 93% number completely, take your best guess average of the drop in equities, derivatives, and bonds trading and present it as a factual number, or are Anthony et. al full of crap?
The funniest part is that you fabricated this exaggerated number in support of a post saying that you weren’t resorting to hyperbole!