should we have a tobin-tax here..?
“..Gordon Brown yesterday threw his weight behind a “Tobin tax” on financial transactions as a way of taxing and reining in the banks, despite warnings that such taxes are unworkable.
“We should discuss whether we need a better economic and social contract to reflect the global responsibilities of financial institutions to society,” he said at the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in St Andrews, Fife.
The prime minister’s plan appeared to fall at the first hurdle when Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, said: “A day-by-day financial transaction tax is not something we are prepared to support.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been asked to examine the practicalities of such a tax and report back in April.
But Dominique Strauss-Kahn, its managing director, warned that it could prove too easy to avoid for banks.
A tax of 1% or less levied on financial transactions would both raise considerable revenue and limit so-called speculative activity on extremely low-margin trades..”
go to source/story>>Gordon Brown triggers row with call for bank supertax - Times Online