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Latest update: 04/11/2011
- eurozone - finance - France - taxes - UK
Sarkozy reiterates call for financial transactions tax
French President Nicolas Sarkozy repeated his call for a tax on financial transactions at the G20 summit on Thursday, saying such a tax was "possible, financially indispensable and morally inarguable".
By News Wires (text)
AFP - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday that a tax on financial transactions is possible, necessary and moral, adding that Brazil and Argentina were not opposed to such a levy.
Sarkozy said he believed that such a tax was "technically possible, financially indispensable and morally inarguable.
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"Some countries were very opposed to it," he acknowledged after the first day of the G20 summit of the world's most powerful economies, but he welcomed what he said was Brazil and Argentina's signal they were not opposed to it.
France and Germany have been pushing for a small tax on financial transactions to be adopted at the G20 as a mechanism to force markets to help pay for government efforts to rescue debt-riden economies.
However, the scheme has run into opposition from the United States, Canada, Russia and China although Sarkozy indicated earlier Thursday following talks with President Barack Obama that US objections may be softening.
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Comments (2)
Proposed Finance speculation tax
Motion once again not adopted by G20. On the one hand understandable, on the other not.
Not understandable: taking the ordinary shares stock markets, where companies come seeking funding for long term perspective, and meet only investors seeking short term gain. Traders that spend more time on graphs and rumors than on balance sheets (if they can still read them...) and verified economic data.
Anyone see the problem? Reliable tools exist to value a company (used in M&A). Why should shares be quoted more or less than this value?
It's not a question of "thrashing the ugly speculators". They are just optimising gains using the current rules. It's a question of redefining those rules to bring the Finance sector back to what it's supposed to be, a support function to the public and to the other sectors.
Understandable: if resources currently used in speculating are rechannelled into industrial and service R&D and development, develloping countries such as the BRICs will loose comptetitiveness, hence their reluctance.
Also, some countries such as UK and US are home to many of these investors, and fear losses if they go against them. Also, they are de facto more subject to lobbying from these firms.
Best regards
proposed tobin tax
Not another tax why must yet more of my pension be stolen for dubious projects.Possibly the cost of collection would be as much or more than the proceeds
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