Wall St. Weighs a Challenge to a Proposed Tax (NY Times)

[jefferson_dem]

Wall St. Weighs a Challenge to a Proposed Tax
By ERIC DASH

Wall Street’s main lobbying arm has hired a top Supreme Court litigator to study a possible legal battle against a bank tax proposed by the Obama administration, on the theory that it would be unconstitutional, according to three industry executives briefed on the matter.

In an e-mail message sent last week to the heads of Wall Street legal departments, executives of the lobbying group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, wrote that a bank tax might be unconstitutional because it would unfairly single out and penalize big banks, said these officials, who did not want to be identified to preserve relationships with the group’s members.

The message said the association had hired Carter G. Phillips of Sidley Austin, who has argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court, to study whether a tax on one industry could be considered arbitrary and punitive, providing the basis for a constitutional challenge, they said.

Administration officials and other legal experts have called those claims dubious.

Indeed, President Obama urged the financial lobby to stand down when he introduced the tax proposal last week: “Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibilities.”

A spokesman for the lobbying group, Andrew DeSouza, confirmed on Sunday that Mr. Phillips was working with the group on a series of regulatory and legislative matters, including the tax. But because no formal tax legislation has been proposed by Congress, Mr. DeSouza said it was “premature to speculate on any potential actions beyond opposing the proposal itself as both punitive and counterproductive to increasing lending.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/business/18bank.html?hp&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=co2hog&utm_source=co2hog

[HughMoran]

1. OK, then how about we revoke their citizenship instead?

Fucking bankers.

[pscot]

2. They are already widely hated

If they keep this up people will start shooting at them, or worse

[Phx_Dem]

3. It's fine for banks to "fee" customers to death in order to make record profits

while its customers are out of work and the economy is barely out of a recession which the financial industry caused, but when the Fed tries to enact a fee on banks . . . well, that's unconscionable and we're gonna sue! :cry:

PIGS.

[TomCADem]

4. Gee, What Happened To Outrage Over Activist Courts?

We have the Supreme Court on the verge of giving corporations the right to contribute unlimited sums to campaigns, and we have Wall Street firms relying on the Courts to invalidate efforts to recover the cost of the bailout.

[Teaser]

5. yes, please sue the president over this

instant PR win.

[ncteechur]

6. I say nationalize them!!!