There is a chance to introduce a tax that will recognise both the massive expansion of the financial services industry in recent years and the fact that taxation has never kept up with this ”“ but also a tax that will generate really substantial resources to deal with the urgent global needs that can’t wait for some miraculous turnaround in the economy. If we are serious about wanting to tackle real poverty at home or abroad, would we prefer to see an increased burden on domestic taxpayers or an innovative approach that looks for help to the enormous revenues of the financial world? There certainly is a profound connection between poverty and the banking crisis ”“ we all know the new pressures on jobs and the poor at home ”“ and the World Bank has estimated that two million more children could die as a result of the downturn.
The plan is to tax certain transactions between financial institutions ”“ not burdening the High Street banks or the private currency transactions of holidaymakers, but targeting the hundreds of billions that flow between the big players in the financial industry. A tax of an average of 0.05% on these transactions ”“ 50p in every £1000 ”“ could generate something like £250 billion per annum.
Tax them until they drop and tax them again. The modern state needs tax revenue to fill an ever hungry bottomless pit.
[blockquote] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5V-FwsovE ]Let me tell you how it will be,
There’s one for you, nineteen for me,
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
(If you drive a car ), I’ll tax the street,
(If you try to sit ), I’ll tax your seat,
(If you get too cold ), I’ll tax the heat,
(If you take a walk ), I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman.
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Don’t ask me what I want it for
(Taxman! Mister Wilson!)
If you don’t want to pay some more
(Taxman! Mister Heath!),
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Now my advice for those who die, (Taxman!)
Declare the pennies on your eyes, (Taxman!)
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
And you’re working for no-one but me, [/url][/blockquote]
I wish Rowan Williams would shut up when it comes to things about which he has no knowledge. He can’t even keep his own house/castle (very expensive and paid for by the taxpayers) in order within the Anglican Communion, so why should we listen to anything he would say about the economy. I love all the “do good works by forcing the government to compel people to act like we think they should” Socialist intelliegentsia propaganda that hides underneath the skirts of faux pious religiosity. I’m sure comments like this and the equally inane ones from Schori are just going to pack them into the pews. It’s a shame they won’t have any money left to give after the government takes it all.
Most people who engage in these kinds of activities can afford the tax. After all, many of these trades are speculative, and don’t create much value. They may, however, threaten the entire system.
It’s entirely reasonable for a society to offer disincentives for greed. Especially if we suppose a society has Christian roots. Joseph paid taxes. Jesus said something about Ceasar.
Not only that, it may stimulate the economy.
JW never met a tax he didn’t like. It’s great to do good with other peoples money.
London, New York, and Frankfurt are the financial centers of the world, but there is nothing to make traders use one of these centers. If you tax transactions in London, the investors will either go somewhere else, or find a way to pass the tax onto the end user. If New York then regulates the life out of these trades, investors could abandon it as well. Do we really want a global economy run out of Bangkok or the Cayman Islands?
As for stimulating the economy, unless you are talking about jobs from a bloated government, there is no credible way to stimulate the economy by taking more money away from those who provide jobs.
The Keynesian model followed by the current administration here in the US has brought us greater debt in just 15 months than the entire history of the country combined, yet it still hasn’t generated much life in the private sector, though everything’s coming up roses in the public sector.
It’s funny how ++Rowan can be relatively straightforward about leftist economic principals (and before anybody jumps me on that, he has called himself a “hairy leftist” in his politics) yet he requires an interpretor everytime he gives a sermon about the uniqueness of Christ.
This tax is a classic case of using a shotgun, where a rifle is more appropriate. There are plenty of small traders and small to medium trading and brokerage businesses who will be decimated by such a tax. If, as most people agree, the current economic problems were caused, at least in part, by large Wall Street firms; e.g. Goldman Sachs, why not target just them instead of everyone who trades?
I am truly amazed that anyone could consider such a tax as stimulative. There are any number of studies that show exactly the opposite. But, it always easy to fix things with other people’s money, especially when it won’t really affect your lifestyle. I guess just like cheap grace there is cheap social justice.
My heart sinks when I see something by Rowan Williams nowadays. It was not always so.
“Of course it won’t be easy to secure universal compliance among all nations. But many argue that even a country unilaterally imposing such a tax – perhaps starting with a currency tax – would generate a huge amount of fresh income and not lose its economic competitiveness. Could Britain take the lead and unilaterally champion the first steps towards a form of taxation that may radically transform the relationship between rich and poor?”
When the Labour Party came to power they inherited a country which had some of the lowest taxation in Europe, low government debt, the fourth largest economy of the world and with a massive service sector supporting the position of London as one of the three leading financial and banking centers of the world. London has a good position in its time zone to service the world’s financial transactions and an educated and experienced workforce to encourage banks and employers to locate here, good communications and a pleasant and relatively safe environment to live in.
Coming up to an election this year Britain is one of the most highly taxed countries in Europe, has massive and spiralling government debt and under the burden of high taxes, debt, high cost of living and expensive property has become uncompetitve and is slipping down the economic rankings. Banks and financial instititutions are already considering their position here.
What we need like a hole in the head is a “Robin Hood” tax to drive the financial institutions out of London, destroy jobs, collapse the property market and leave all the support businesses reliant upon the financial sector [including the government for the taxes they pay] without any customers.
There is no magic to this, it will happen, as has happened before. A US example is in the 1960’s JFK announced that he would tax Greek overseas businesses with an office in New York on their international earnings. Overnight the Greek Shipping interests managing their fleets from New York left and never returned. Before he did it, they told him what would happen, but he did it any way.
This latest article follows a run of badly judged pronouncements including Rowan Williams’ stupid comments on Sharia Law which no doubt the remaining Christians of Jos are reflecting on. We had the embarrasment of his comments to service men and women returning from a very difficult time in Iraq. Williams purports to speak for the church but does so off the cuff without consulting anybody, or thinking through the consequences of what he says before he mouths off.
He is a liability and a foolish intellectually arrogant man – I am coming to the conclusion that we can no longer afford him shooting his mouth off and cocking everything up.
Plus, if you want to see what would happen to the country if it followed Rowan Williams’ financial advice you can get a pretty good idea from the mess the Church of England’s finances have got into during his tenure.
It matters not whose ox is gored so long as it isn’t one’s own ox. Other people’s money (OPM) is much the same. There is no greater generosity to be achieved than that done in the name of the “people” using the seemingly unlimited supply of OPM to fuel fire. In thermodynamics there is a lovely theory that allows an energy transformation process to continue indefinitely with no need to add fuel. It is called the Carnot Cycle. Folks who find ++Rowen’s and Curtis’ thoughts on the subject cogent fervently believe in it. They also believe there is such a thing as a free lunch.
Dopes.
The trouble is that this sort of foolish comment by the Archbishop can have real consequences, much as his comments on Sharia impacted negatively on the mission of the church in Africa.
I know a lot of people who have lost their jobs in the City of London. How is one to explain that AB Williams is doing his best to limit their chances of getting back into the financial services sector and undermining the future of those who still have jobs?
Prat!
Heh #5. Just because I’m to the left of Attila the Hun doesn’t mean I believe in taxes all the time. It’s just that the evidence – railroads, a working judiciary, support of hospitals, innovations through NASA and the defense industry, the GI bill, public schools, sewers, rural electrification, to name a few, indicate that sometimes taxes benefit the common good. Yes, the uber rich prefer a series of small monarchies, but wars do need to be paid for.
#11 to think that the ABC’s statements actually make a difference to those looking for work is… remarkable.
My own view is that if you don’t want to pay the dues to live in a reasonably safe country, you can always take your money and live in Somalia. No government there. No taxes. The people who hate taxes are just as likely to be free riders as the individuals they despise.
#12 JW
“#11 to think that the ABC’s statements actually make a difference to those looking for work is… remarkable.”
Such a tax as is proposed by the ABC on transactions passing through the UK just will have the effect of making London uncompetitive as a financial center. There are a lot of other capitals out there who would love to have the business if we don’t. Where business is international and not necessarily transacted through a particular country or jurisdiction, if one place of business puts up barriers or makes doing business there expensive, it will just go somewhere else where the transaction costs are lower. In the internet age both money and business are extremely fluid. So if statements of the ABC and others encouraging the government with a daft scheme which they then enact we will lose our financial and banking pre-eminence and it will most certainly make a difference to everybody in this country.
“My own view is that if you don’t want to pay the dues to live in a reasonably safe country, you can always take your money and live in Somalia. No government there. No taxes. The people who hate taxes are just as likely to be free riders as the individuals they despise.”
Taxes are fair enough and necessary, but you do reach a point when they become so large that business ends up being killed off. I know, I was brought up in a country where the top rate of income tax was 95%, Britain was known as the “poor man of Europe”. We restored our economy by reducing taxation, and the increased economic activity in fact led to a higher aggregate tax yield. Economic success leads to higher tax yields leads to more to spend on defence, police, and spacecraft.
In addition, where you try to tax international transactions which do not need to go through London, the institutions transacting them will revolt and those transactions will just be transacted elsewhere. I would have thought coming from a country that revolted over a similar overseas imposed tax on tea you would know this.
Pageantmaster, if you want to compare the US to europe, you’ll find that most Europeans don’t mind paying greater taxes. They have more weekends, time off when they have kids, greater vacations. Germany and Holland and France and Norway still have lots of companies. They just don’t feel the need to defend bankers who are rigging the system.
My personal point is that taxes can be applied surgically, not religiously. Some taxes are good, some are useless. In this country, however, “tax cuts” is actually more like a religion.
The US isn’t the only place where innovation is happening: and it often happens when there is private-public partnership. China is at the forefront of green technology; even many of our own inventions happened at universities that got your tax money. They probably had professors who got money from the GI bill. Or government backed loans to go to school. Some even went to public university. Public university is paid for by taxes.
Sometimes taxes are bad. But usually when applied to people making more than $4 million a year, it makes little difference – except it can ease the misery of many other people. Which may be a worthy thing.