Is A Wall Street Transaction Tax Still Being Talked About And Considered?......

[global1]

I don't think I've heard much about this lately. What's the story?

[brooklynite]

1. It was never "being considered"

It was just a campaign proposal by Bernie Sanders

[Voltaire2]

2. Yeah god forbid Wall Street had to actually

pay for all the loot they haul in.

[DFW]

3. The devil is always in the details

Stocks are traded either by brokers or online, and there is always a tiny transaction fee, which keeps the brokers/brokerages in business. Take a piece out of that and a lot of somebodies are out of a job. Put it on top, then there might be less stocks traded. The administration of such a tax would take either a lot of manpower or else a lot of computer-generated fees which are then hackable.

It's always good propaganda to yell "Wall Street!" and "billionayahs!" but if you're going to "stick it to them," you had better do it in such a fashion that spreads the pain around and makes for little to no increase in paperwork and fraud opportunities. I would simply raise the top income tax bracket from 39.6% to 42.5% for income over $350,000 (making state income taxes again deductible) and then close a lot of loopholes. But maybe that doesn't create the kind of enemy that makes an easy enough target for campaign slogans.

[mopinko]

4. i think the last time i saw it floated, it wasnt going to add up to enough money to do

whatever it was it was being touted to pay for.

it's a sticky thing today.
the money in those markets is extremely sensitive to even tiny numbers. if it isnt done right, rolled out right (world wide), capital will get out of the way.
the markets are global, computerized, networked, automated. the open outcry floors are all but gone.
any market that sticks it's head up on this will be gone by the end of the first day.
it's would be a major blow to chicago, where the financial sector has some of the best jobs in town.
atlanta, kansas city, san francisco. several american cities would take a very big hit if you do this wrong.

[DBoon]

5. We had such a tax until 1966

The US imposed a financial transaction tax from 1914 to 1966 that was originally 0.2% and was doubled during the Great Depression. Currently, the US imposes a $0.0042 round-trip transaction tax on security futures transactions and $21.80 per million dollars for securities transactions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax

Funny, the original rate does not seem to have hurt economic growth during this time.

[in2herbs]

6. I am all for a transaction tax. I am also for raising the FDIC insurance coverage for bank deposits

to $1 million. This would allow people with small investment accounts security and to be in charge of their own money and would allow them to purchase one or more CDs instead of stocks, thereby wiping out the $$ charged by investment companies. After all, the government has guaranteed investment companies/banks their insured for more than the current $250,000 FDIC rate when they plunge the economy into bankruptcy,so why shouldn't we get the same privilege? The return on a CD isn't as much as with the stock market but an article a few years back said that those with less than $140,000 in their IRA are making no financial advancements because of the fees charged by financial advisors. I've recently seen CD rates at 2.8%.