France’s experiment with the Tobin Tax has proved a spectacular flop. Its finance ministry admits that the scattershot levy on financial transactions has raised just a third of the money expected since August.
Total takings will be a paltry €800m in 2013, but that overlooks the much greater damage inflicted on French finance, industry and the government’s own tax base. “France is shooting itself in the foot,” said Paul-Henri de La Porte du Theil, head of French finance industry AFG.
Jean-Yves Hocher from Crédit Agricole said it would cost his company €17bn. One French banker told Les Echos that the tax was “a weapon of mass destruction that is going to ruin our financial sector”.
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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard–Financial Transaction Tax is crazy for Europe, and economic war against UK
France’s experiment with the Tobin Tax has proved a spectacular flop. Its finance ministry admits that the scattershot levy on financial transactions has raised just a third of the money expected since August.
Total takings will be a paltry €800m in 2013, but that overlooks the much greater damage inflicted on French finance, industry and the government’s own tax base. “France is shooting itself in the foot,” said Paul-Henri de La Porte du Theil, head of French finance industry AFG.
Jean-Yves Hocher from Crédit Agricole said it would cost his company €17bn. One French banker told Les Echos that the tax was “a weapon of mass destruction that is going to ruin our financial sector”.
Read it all.