Here's my RallyCongress.com email to send to your Congressmen and President Obama. Please everyone email it ASAP and spread the word as much as possible. "New proposed FTT bills need to be stopped, including the French tax assault on American investors." http://greentradertax-traders-assoc...s-need-to-be-stopped-including-french-tax-as/
Wow, that's a really good article. Summary: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...rrow-through-robin-hood-taxes/article5333485/
Its going to happen - we no longer life in a free country or world. The bastards will get what they want eventually. It may be stalled, but it will happen. Sad but true in my opinion. Defazio has been hammering at this for years.
Bob -- I sent this truncated version of your letter through the system. I wonder if the focus should be kept on Harkin/DeFazio as it is bicameral. Also, whether we'd wish to avoid any R/D dichotomy as much as possible, since this isn't (or certainly shouldn't be) a partisan issue. Anyway, just fwiw... Dear ____: Please don't fall for the lie. A financial transaction tax would not tax Wall Street nearly as much as it would tax Main Street. It would not tax fat-cat insiders nearly as much as it would tax ordinary American investors, pensioners, non-profits. Advocates argue call it a "tiny tax"...but then talk of the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue this "tiny" tax would raise. In fact, the financial transaction tax proposed by Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Peter DeFazio would put market makers out of business, creating conditions for new flash crashes. Investors would lose a significant portion of their portfolio capital, dampening investment in the US economy at a time when it can scarcely afford it. The bottom line is this: A financial transaction tax would cost the US economy far more than it would raise in taxes. Tax banks directly and target the upper income if you think thatâs fair, but please don't raise taxes on retirement funds, charities, and on every small investor in America. For more information about the financial transaction tax, please visit http://financialtransactiontaxes.com. It surveys international response to the FTT in a clear and dispassionate manner. Thank you for your attention to this issue Sincerely,
Thanks Tortoise. My editor suggested I remove Tom Davis's good letter as it made my letter long. Tom, can you add your letter the the ftt Website. I link to the site in my letter. Everyone should send any of our letters, mine, Tortoises, or Tom Davis' letter. Revise them as you like. Just send it to your representatives in Congress and President Obama. Start on http://greentradertax-traders-assoc...s-need-to-be-stopped-including-french-tax-as/ You can read my full petition or letter on our blog at http://www.greencompany.com/blog/index.php?postid=172 I'll post it next.
Every user and service provider of U.S. financial exchanges needs to be aware of the harm that financial-transaction taxes (FTT) will cause. This tax will affect many groups, including retail, proprietary or hedge-fund traders; those who rely on pensions or charitable or university endowment funds; and those who work for a financial services company or exchange. Send this letter http://greentradertax-traders-assoc...s-need-to-be-stopped-including-french-tax-as/ to your Congressman ASAP to protect your interests and the overall economy. A few U.S. Congressmen are trying to include their proposed FTT bills in the fiscal-cliff negotiations. France passed an FTT and is trying to collect this tax from Americans. Join Rep. Tom Price in trying to stop the French tax assault on American investors. FTTs are snowballing in the EU, and President Obama and our Congressmen need to act now! Please email this letter http://greentradertax-traders-assoc...s-need-to-be-stopped-including-french-tax-as/ (or a revised version) to your Congressman. We need to act fast while tax talk swirls around Washington D.C. over the fiscal cliff and in 2013 with tax reform on the table. Petition to Congress: Dear Honorable Congressman: As Congress and the administration consider all types of tax revenues for solving the fiscal cliff, please donât be tempted into considering a financial-transaction tax (FTT). President Obama promised he would not raise taxes on the American middle class and poor, and thatâs exactly what an FTT does. Instituting one is a shotgun approach thatâs principally paid by the users of our financial markets. That includes all investors, retirees, charitable foundations which help the poor, and university endowments which provide scholarships and financial aid to students. Most pension funds are significantly underfunded, and those funds will never catch up to where they need to be to pay retirees if an FTT is allowed to decimate their portfolios. Taxpayers will have to make up the difference. For these very reasons, President Obama and Secretary Geithner denounced FTTs many times at the G-8 and G-20. President Obama has a better approach on taxing banks in his annual budget: instituting a âfinancial crisis responsibility feeâ only charged to big banks on their liabilities (risk capital). President Obama expressed displeasure with Rep. Peter DeFazio for continuing to push his FTT bills in Congress with little sponsorship. Congress is focused on raising tax revenue from the rich, but not from the middle class and poor. The Affordable Care Act starts a new Medicare 3.8% tax on Jan. 1 on the upper-income groupâs unearned income, principally investment income. With Bush-era tax rates expiring on the upper income at year-end, capital gains and dividend tax rates are headed higher for them, too. Theyâre already being tapped for tax hikes on their investments. Tax banks directly and target the upper income if you think thatâs fair, but itâs unfair to raise taxes on middle-class investors, retirement funds, charities, and university endowment funds. Donât buck President Obama on this. Say no to FTT bills from Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Congressional leaders dismissed pro-FTT bills to date, not showing them the light of day in Congress. But in negotiating the fiscal cliff deal before year-end, FTT advocates are trying to sneak one back on the table. Advocates argue it would be a tiny tax, but itâs huge â it will put market makers and traders out of business overnight, which will create conditions for new flash crashes. Investors will lose a significant portion of their portfolio capital over time and it will rebalance their risk premium, further dampening investment. France adopted an FTT recently and it now includes American Depository Receipts (ADRs) of French equities trading on U.S. exchanges. This means for Americans who buy and sell French ADRs on U.S. exchanges or globally, the exchange is supposed to withhold FTT excise taxes and remit that tax revenue to the government of France. While President Obama hopefully can keep his pledge to protect middle class Americans from tax hikes, without further tools from Congress, he will be unable to block the French tax assault. This reminds me of the British slapping Americans with stamp duty taxes which led to the American Revolution. Congress must fix this fast! Please support Rep. Tom Priceâs Nov. 30 bill to enable the U.S. Treasury to block this French tax attack in America. Itâs a slap in the face of the (French-gifted) Statue of Liberty. Visit http://tomprice.house.gov/press-release/price-introduces-bill-opposing-financial-transaction-tax. France and Germany strong-armed nine other EU members to adopt a similar FTT plan. After the UK, Sweden and several other EU members said no, they used the EUâs minority approach âenhanced cooperationâ (EC) procedure. The crucial upcoming QMV (qualified majority voting) round of EC can defeat FTT EC-11, and that vote is extremely close. The UK and Sweden are vehemently against this EU FTT since it mostly falls on investors using Londonâs dominant exchanges. If the UK is very against it, the U.S. should be too, since the U.S. also has the worldâs largest financial exchanges channeling investors from around the world, and stands to lose the most. Are you ready to allow the U.S. to become a minor player in financial services and cede financial industry jobs, payroll and income taxes to Asia on your watch? Sweden tried an FTT in the early 1990s and it decimated Swedish and Finnish banks overnight with financial transactions, along with banks and jobs fleeing to London. While Paris and Berlin may be willing to take this gamble as part of their effort to federalize the EU, London, New York and Chicago canât afford this great risk. We have different interests to protect. Germany may slow this down to 2016, but France is pushing ahead and attacking the U.S. with this tax now. Rep. Price says in his press release: âPaying taxes to other countries is a bad idea â and we need a law to stop it! This financial transaction tax would harm small businesses and investors while damaging American entrepreneursâ ability to compete in a competitive global environment. France and other European Union nations want to charge more taxes on financial transactions, ignoring the fact that small investors will be forced out of capital markets. This move would impede financial markets efficiency, decrease liquidity, distort and discriminate within markets, and raise costs all at a time when what our economy desperately needs is more private capital investment in growth and job creation. I urge my colleagues to act on behalf of American entrepreneurs, investors and job creators by joining this effort to preempt the imposition of any form of a financial transaction tax on American markets.â To learn why a diverse group of people oppose the FTT, please read âStraight talk about the FTTâ at:www.financialtransactiontaxes.com . (This includes more than 40 references with research from experts around the world.) The goal of tax discussions is to raise revenue in a productive and fair fashion. An FTT fails this test. It falls on the middle class, and the rich can navigate around it by using markets that donât charge one. President Obama, Speaker Boehner and the other Congressional leaders have enough on their plate right now with the fiscal cliff. Itâs a bad idea to throw a major monkey wrench like an FTT into the mix, after President Obama and the other leaders already took it off the table. We canât negotiate backwards. Revenue from an FTT would be more than offset by lost tax revenues related to job losses (payroll and income taxes), capital losses rather than capital gains taxes, and net operating loss tax refunds rather than business income taxes. In the end, a FTT is a punitive attack against free-market capitalism. Why play politics and seek revenge, when we have an economy to fix and jobs to create? Thank you for your cooperation and caring for your constituentsâ needs.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/1...ondon-can-mean-life-or-death-people-with-hiv/ Dear god at this spin. http://jamesrobertdeal.org/nader-a-sales-tax-on-stock-trades/ "Cliff fix" Curious if any one if going to come up with an alternative product based on French shares that escape the tax, as the banks seem so willing to hand it over.
EU Moves Ahead With Transaction Tax in Rejecting U.K. Changes http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...transaction-tax-in-rejecting-u-k-changes.html This is an interesting development. There were 10 objecting countries which is encouraging for the upcoming QMV. Looking at the voting allocations (http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/area...onary/definitions/qualifiedmajorityvoting.htm) and making educated guesses as to who those 10 countries were, it looks reasonably hopeful that we could reach the 88 votes required to block. By my reckoning there are 8 countries who would have cause to object plus 2 other countries (Romania and Bulgaria?) making the number up to 10: UK(29) , Poland(27), Romania(14), Czech Rep.(12), Sweden(10), Bulgaria(10), Denmark(7), Ireland(7), Luxembourg(4), and Malta(3). If all these voted no in QMV we would have 123 votes (if these are the right countries). Even without Poland we'd have 96. Howevever if Romania and Bulgaria are replaced by, for example, Lithuania(7) and Latvia(4) then we'd narrowly lose without Poland. The fact that the commission refused to make an entirely reasonable amendment makes it more likely that countries will vote no in QMV in my opinion.
European Commission MEMO Brussels, 3 December 2012 Preparation of Economic and Finance Ministers Council, Brussels, 4 December 2012 [...] Financial Transaction Tax (ET) The Council is expected to hold a debate on the Commission's proposal to authorise going forward with a common Financial Transaction Tax system in 11 Member States. On 23 October, the Commission tabled a proposal for a Council Decision to authorise setting up a common system of financial transaction tax under the procedure of enhanced cooperation, which can be used in case no unanimity is achievable and at least 9 Member States want to go ahead in an area that is not yet covered by EU legislation (see IP/12/1138) . It will be based on the scope and objectives of the Commission proposal of 2011 (see IP/11/1085) . The objectives of the September 2011 proposal were essentially three-fold. First, an FTT would strengthen the EU Single Market and avoid distortions of competition by setting up a harmonised framework for an FTT. Second, it would ensure that the financial sector makes a fair and substantial contribution to covering the cost of the financial crisis. And finally, it would create appropriate disincentives for transactions that do not enhance the efficiency or stability of financial markets thereby complementing regulatory measures to avoid future crises.[...] http://www.europa-nu.nl/id/vj54gp2b...n_financien?ctx=vim2bx14ecsu&s0e=vifdkm1d06kk No mention of QMV. QMV had been suggested for the December Ecofin but it isn't clear that this is what is described above. Anyone know when it will be ?
This would be great, but there may be a lot of bullying on little states. And anyway going further into the debates, we have to really make a difference between "news" coming from the EU authorities and news coming from member states. Because it's clear that what Germany wants( Possible... stamp tax for its own budget ) and what the commission wants ( tax every people on earth who had the misfortune to trade with an european ... for the Euro budget ) are 2 different things.