I'm envious that you can manage to ignore all this talk of the FTT. I can't. Not because I trade for a living, but more for my pensions. The rates mentioned by the EU is quite high.
Oh I haven't ignored the chatter about the FTT. But instead of concerning myself with what the politicians and bureaucrats are inclined to do, I just focus on what I'm going to do. As another poster stated, independent traders are not a protected class in this country. When a law is enacted in the name of protecting traders, you can be sure that it is to screw them over. See Pattern Daytrading Rule. In the U.S. the Tobin tax has little support right now. But I know that can change quickly because of the current wealth-redistribution fervor in this country. In Europe the FTT appears to be gaining traction, unfortunately.
"poland (27). who knows really." If they vote solely on this issue then they'll probably vote no, but if they vote with a view to a wider context then who knows, as you say... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20717943
Don't enact financial transaction taxes By Paul Schott Stevens, president and CEO, Investment Company Institute http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-b...274007-dont-enact-financial-transaction-taxes
I have found an other argument that pro-FTT people have a hard time dealing with... I was talking with a pro-FTT half commie non profit whatever girl the other day and I had a hard time arguing with her until I said : "Well, look 0.01% of a typical futures contract is 100000 * 0.01% = 10 $, last year I created a new company and did all the necessary paperwork ... to get an electronic membership at CME and save 1$ per contract. This is pretty much the difference between professionals and retail traders, 1 $ of exchange fees. You are trying to make us pay 10. Good luck." She didn't believe my margin profit was smaller than the tax until I explained that.
Tax on financial transactions: easy to design, difficult to implement French government report on behalf of the European Affairs Committee, filed December 21, 2012 for the French Senate http://www.senat.fr/rap/r12-259/r12-259.html Report appears to be critical of the extra-territorial nature of the European Commission's proposal and (if I've understood it correctly) recommends scaling it back to tax only those transactions that occur in the EC-11 zone and where at least one counter-party is resident. Can anyone shed any light as to whether this report might have any influence in France? [...] (google translation) 5. Adopt the principle of "territoriality limited" All financial transactions should be taxed, but they should be on the territory of those who have adopted the tax. This principle of territoriality limited must be combined with the principle residence of the parties to the transaction. At this point, we may reasonably require that all financial transactions taking place on the territory of the EU (or a fraction of the territory where enhanced cooperation) is taxed when at least one party is established the said territory, thus avoiding extraterritoralité tax. It is illusory to believe that the London agree to be taxed and lose its raison d'être by the lack of a massive transfer of activities outside Europe. Also illusory to hope that Luxembourg could accept that the management of investment funds to become more expensive. [...]
This is great. French senators are calling the commission project a failure and advocating a much smaller tax( like the french one or a stamp tax ) which would occur only on territorial exchanges. They think that's why they couldn't reach an EU wide agreement and opted for EC. They say it's an attack to the fiscal sovereignty of foreign countries and should be abandoned. They also say that the current rates are too high and that the burden will probably be end up on retail investors. In fact, they actually make more sense than the usual french politicians, it's quite scary...LOL
However, the senator in question is from UMP and not Hollande's party. But it just sounds like France is not in a hurry to have a bigger tax. Prime Minister recently said they "haven't ruled out" having a broader tax( but it isn't a priority ...)
google alerts have been quiet until this one tonight. France Transaction Tax And Derivatives - Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/france-transaction-tax-and-derivatives-2013-1 On another front, the French 75% tax rate attack on their rich was struck down by a high court and Socialists said they would try to retool it. They aren't doing to well with their tax attacks and that's good news.
As we said in the first post in this thread: "Our goal is to get the volume of the talk of this tax down to zero." It's been nice & quiet lately. Hopefully, when the Democrats go on their search for "more revenue without raising tax rates", this issue doesn't reappear. Happy 2013 Mr. Green.