[P2P-F] Fwd: EU calls for 'Tobin' tax in a move to raise direct revenue

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 6:47 AM
Subject: Fwd: EU calls for 'Tobin' tax in a move to raise direct revenue
To: econowmix at googlegroups.com


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/29/ec-proposes-tobin-style-taxes

note: thanks to mihail for the link

---------- Forwarded message ----------

spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/29/ec-proposes-tobin-style-taxes

EU calls for 'Tobin' tax in a move to raise direct revenue

European commission unveils trillion-euro budget plan and wants bigger share
of its spending to come from tax revenue or other levies that go
automatically to Brussels

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday June 30 2011
The Guardian


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/29/ec-proposes-tobin-style-taxes


The European commission has called for Tobin-style taxes on the EU's
financial sector to generate direct revenue for its first trillion-euro
budget.

Unveiling its blueprint for the EU budget for the seven years from 2014, the
commission demanded a bigger share of its spending supplied from "own
resources" ? tax revenue or other levies that go auto- matically to Brussels
rather than being handed over by the 27 member states.

In the face of stiff opposition from Britain, the commission called for much
of the budget to come directly from new financial market taxes and a
simplified method of taking a share of member states' VAT receipts. "We are
proposing an ambitious and, at the same time, responsible budget," said Jos?
Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission. "It is a realistic
proposal."

The proposed budget for 2014-2020 amounts to ?971.5bn (?872bn) in payments
and ?1,025tn in commitments. "It's a ?1tn budget," said an EU official. It
is the opening round in what will be a gruelling 18 months of battle between
national governments, the commission and the European parliament.

David Cameron, the British prime minister, has selected the budget issue as
the key battleground for his EU policy, heading a group of wealthier
countries determined to minimise budget increases. They want to subject EU
institutions and its spending to the same sort of austerity measures being
implemented in many member states.

Together with German, French, Dutch and Finnish leaders, Cameron has
demanded that the 2014-2020 budget spending be frozen at the level of 2013,
rising only in line with inflation. That would mean the EU budget would
amount to about 0.92% of aggregated EU gross national income. The final
proposal being haggled over on Wednesday was believed to come in at 1.02%.

The mountain of documentation that is being released by the commission was
preceded by lengthy negotiations within the executive. The EU's foreign
policy chief, Lady Ashton, who also sits as Britain's commissioner, was said
to have used an 11-hour session this week to win early agreement on the
sanctity of Britain's perennially contested rebate, currently worth ?3bn a
year. "There will always be corrections if there are imbalances," she
maintained.  The commission said that it wanted to simplify the rebate
system through a new practice of annual lump-sum reductions.

Ashton also argued that an EU tax on financial transactions, which is
strongly opposed by the British government, would not work unless also
levied internationally. Precise details of the proposed taxes on the
financial sector remained unclear.

The British government promptly dismissed the commission blueprint. "The
European commission's proposal is completely unrealistic," a spokesperson
said. "It is too large, not the restrained budget they claim and
incompatible with the tough decisions being taken in countries across
Europe."

Britain is to resist any idea that the commission could levy direct European
taxes to raise revenue. The commission denies that it is demanding direct
European taxes.

The government also fears that a financial transactions tax ? a Tobin or
"Robin Hood" tax ? would disproportionately penalise the City of London,
with traders and banks probably just moving to New York or the far east. "We
would lose jobs and revenue," said an official.

Support for such a move, however, is growing among both EU governments. A
recent Eurobarometer opinion poll showed 61% support for a tax on financial
transactions across the EU, with two- thirds of Britons backing it.

David Hillman, spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, said: "The British
government should wake up and smell the coffee. Other governments are moving
ahead with a bank tax, while we are letting our financial sector off the
hook.

"A Robin Hood tax on the banks would be the most popular tax in history."


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