If German politicians were the only ones to call for the FTT, I wouldn't be worried, but that's not the case. It's a global debate. In several countries, a variation of the FTT is already in place, e.g. UK, Ireland, Hongkong etc. "effecting" ( read: killing) mostly stock trading. I wouldn't take this too lightly...given the recent bank/ EU country bail outs, the time may be right to finally impose such a tax.
On a global scale, a transaction tax has much fewer chances to happen than 1 1/2 years ago when the UK was in favor of the tax and no alternative bank taxes had been proposed by the US and the IMF. Now, it's just basically France, Germany and ( Austria ) against the rest of the world. The risk is just in the Eurozone, but even here countries like Czech Republic and Sweden can cause a problem. If it comes to law, it will be a real economic Trafalgar for France and Germany. They will lose the rest of their previous influence on markets, especially Germany and Eurex( France has always been worthless ).
You are making the assumption that trading volume will stay the same with the tax. It may well not be.
Which part of 'Obviously in real world they will never generate anything like this as the volume will dry up atleast 10 fold across german futures markets.' didnt you understand?
Is anyone here actually German or live in Germany? I'm moving there for a few months to study German language and will be getting a residence permit. Apparently, I will be subject to German tax having that permit. Can anyone tell me how trading stocks, futures, and currencies are taxed? Are they all taxed the same way until the 15% up to 56k Euro and 46% thereafter?
Wolfgang Schäuble, Germanyâs finance minister, wants the European Union to take the global lead in introducing a financial transaction tax to curb speculative trading, along with tougher regulation of big banks and the âshadowâ banking sector, such as hedge funds. If the UK blocked agreement on such a tax in the full EU, he said in an interview with the Financial Times, the eurozone should press ahead on its own. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e1a2c6b2-02fe-11e1-899a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1cJy1Jeah The German government still pushing hard for this tax.. i hope Eurex got a plan to relocate trading outside the euro zone if this happens.
What will this do? Just make it so the big firms are the only ones who can afford to trade? Like outlawing guns.....just makes it so they're the only ones who have them, outlaws.