{"id":14044,"date":"2012-02-07T14:50:08","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T14:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=14044"},"modified":"2012-02-07T14:50:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T14:50:38","slug":"eu-robin-hood-tax-would-boost-growth-say-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/02\/07\/eu-robin-hood-tax-would-boost-growth-say-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Robin Hood Tax would boost growth, say experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have shamelessly lifted the following from Owen Tudor on the TUC's Touchstone blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A new\u00a0report<\/a>,\u00a0launched<\/a>\u00a0in Brussels on Monday by the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament,\u00a0shows<\/a>\u00a0that \u2014 contrary to what\u00a0the finance sector\u2019s paid lobbyists have been insisting \u2014 a European financial transaction tax (FTT)\u00a0would boost growth in Europe by at least 0.25%,\u00a0 raise\u00a0the revenue to combat poverty and climate change at home and abroad, and help re-balance the economy by making long-term investment more worthwhile than short-term, high frequency trading. This new report by noted economists\u00a0Prof Avinash Persaud<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Prof Stephany Griffith-Jones<\/a>\u00a0comes on top of revised estimates from the European Commission who originally produced some of the data that fat cat financiers pounced upon. The Commission\u2019s original impact assessment was based on a flawed model which shows all taxes as harming growth, whatever the revenues are used for, but misunderstandings of what the impact assessment showed were used to create concern among progressive politicians and abused by people opposed to the tax all along to justify their position (even though the same people shed few tears over the impact on growth of measures they support like increased VAT or cuts in public services.)<\/p>\n

Welcoming the new report, Socialist\u00a0MEP Anni Podimata, who will draft the European Parliament\u2019s report on the Commission\u2019s proposed FTT,\u00a0said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study confirms what we have been saying all along.\u00a0 The financial markets have to make a fair contribution to the crisis they provoked.\u00a0An FTT will reduce the fragmentation of the internal market. Put together with other tools, it will act as a disincentive to high frequency trading and other practices which increase risk without ensuring liquidity.\u00a0This would contribute to a better financing of the real economy, encourage investment and job creation in the EU.\u00a0The S&D Group is against putting the entire burden on ordinary taxpayers, and calls for measures to boost growth. In this sense, an FTT is an integral part of this approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Commission\u2019s new approach was set out last week in a combative article in several national newspapers around Europe by EU Tax Commissioner Semeta -\u00a0only a year ago\u00a0an FTT-sceptic \u2014 who\u00a0wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The more the financial transaction tax approaches implementation, the shriller \u2014 hardly by chance \u2014 the rhetoric of its opponents. They twist the Commission\u2019s official data and thereby invent apocalyptic scenarios concerning the impacts of the tax on growth, employment and competitiveness.<\/p>\n

The FTT will neither damage growth and competitiveness nor lead to more unemployment. From an isolated perspective every tax causes economic costs. However, the costs of the FTT are small and, absolutely legitimate, given the enormous support the financial sector has been granted in the recent years. Furthermore, the costs have to be offset against the positive effects from the use of the revenues of the FTT.<\/p>\n

The Griffth-Jones\/Persuad\u00a0paper also disproves the suggestion that an FTT would hit pension funds or pensions, and urges the European Commission to use the model of\u00a0 the UK stamp duty to prevent evasion by forum-hopping, rather than the Commission\u2019s current proposal of a \u2018residence principle\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have shamelessly lifted the following from Owen Tudor on the TUC’s Touchstone blog: A new\u00a0report,\u00a0launched\u00a0in Brussels on Monday by the Socialists and Democrats in
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transaction-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}