Fantastic news from Europe, via the BBC: EU ministers have given the go ahead for 11 eurozone members, including France and Germany, to prepare a new financial transactions tax. The approval under “enhanced co-operation” rules allows the smaller group to pioneer the tax. Governments previously failed to agree to impose the tax across the entire 27-member
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I’ve just had an email saying this: At today’s  ECOFIN Meeting  (9 October) , 11  governments have  agreed to implement a financial transaction tax – that’s two more than the 9 minimum that were needed to kick off the enhanced cooperation procedure. The 11 pro FTT  are  France, Italy, Spain, Germany , Austria, Belgium, Estonia,
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I missed this in the New York Times last Friday: The finance ministers of France and Germany united Friday to raise pressure on EU partners like Italy to back a tax on financial trades that could be used to help the economically disadvantaged. A letter to the Union’s 25 other finance ministers showed Berlin and
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The importance of the story on Glencore’s tax this morning is easily missed. It’s not that Glencore is avoiding tax: I’m not sure that is new to anyone. It is instead how they are avoiding tax. For  long time we have focussed on transfer pricing as the mechanism used by multinational corporations to achieve the goal of shifting profits between locations, and
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As Owen Tudor has reported on the TUC’s Touchstone blog: The European Parliament voted yesterday – by a thumping 487 to 152 – for a Europe-wide Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) to be implemented by 2014, as part of a wider growth strategy. They couldn’t have sent a clearer message to the EU leaders who are meeting this evening in Brussels
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This week is a big one for the Robin Hood Tax, with major developments in the USA and Europe. Despite regular reports of its demise – the result of spinning by opponents in the finance industry – the prospects for a Robin Hood Tax being implemented are stronger than ever. In the UK, supporters of
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I have shamelessly lifted the following from Owen Tudor on the TUC’s Touchstone blog: A new report, launched in Brussels on Monday by the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, shows that – contrary to what the finance sector’s paid lobbyists have been insisting – a European financial transaction tax (FTT) would boost growth in Europe by at least 0.25%,  raise the
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Much of Europe wants a financial transaction tax (FTT). The reason why is obvious: they need the money. The UK is adamant it will have no such tax. It says it will harm the City of London. Of course that’s not true: it’s the City of London that harms us, but Cameron ignores that fact and in
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A Robin Hood Tax – a financial transaction tax – is back on the agenda thanks to the EU, and rightly so. I wrote about this in 2010 in a joint publication called ‘Taxing Banks‘. In it I set out the data supporting such a tax, estimated how much it would raise and suggested – contrary to
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