What do you all think of the Robin Hood Tax?

[FiveOrangePips]

here

make the news

yes the importance of the sector isn't in question at all ( though yes we are way to reliant on it for generation of wealth - that is a separate question) - it's the question of it's willingness/ability to pay a miniscule tax for the benefit of all.
incidentally the Robin Hood Tax Is a movement in lots of other countries, not just the UK.

we seem to be split here on bankers or ex-bankers, or employees saying 'it can't be done', and everyone else in the world saying, 'yes it can be. You just don't want to pay up.'

alot of this is down to belief in what is possible.

I've long thought that it was a thorougly bad idea to give economically illiterate people the vote.

Dertitude, what Brian Cox says is that science does generate as much as banking and financial services do. As for facilitating our economy, they have been instrumental in facilitating the global downturn.

agree Quattro - trouble is, the 'economically literate' have managed to feck things up pretty well without assistance from the the 'illiterate' n'est-ce pas?
Maybe it's time to disenfranchise the 'clever' ones....

So can you explain how this tax will not be passed on to the consumer? Because every other tax/charge of this type is passed on, how is this one any different?

I can see how/where the idea comes from but it seems poorly thought out and hopeful at best. Essentially it will amount to another thing that we are charged for, it may well raise money but it will not take it off the banks, it will take it out of our back pockets, again.

Nah, the economically literate weren't in charge, Pan. The Labour Government was.

Maybe I dont understand this properly, but isn't the issue not that the banks will physically relocate but that the trades will relocate?

i.e. if you can trade a share/bond/fx on a number of exchanges, the customer will trade through an exchange that doesnt have this tax applied, rather than one that does, losing the UK banks income and therefore losing the UK income (commission on that trade)and corporate taxation.

Banks, as with other UK registered corporations, already pay corporation tax on their profits, VAT on their purchases and NI for their employees. They pay enough tax.

The banks took the bail out the last, utterly incompetent, government was offering because it was there. You can hardly blame them for it. Be angry that Brown and his shower didn't have the balls to let some of the banks go under when they thoroughly deserved to, and direct your anger where it belongs.

In addition, this wouldn't work for all the reasons outlined above.

" isn't the issue not that the banks will physically relocate but that the trades will relocate?"

That's exactly the point. A lot of financial business goes through London because the trading conditions here have been favourable. But they all have branches around the world and it's very easy to re-route the trades if necessary. The point at which that happens is when the cost of trading gets too high. It's a commercial decision rather than an ethical one.

Georgimama, that would be at the banks then? For being so incompetant that they allowed themselves to get into the situation where they needed a bail out? I agree that they shouldn't have been offered one but the fault has to lie with the people who got themselves into trouble!

I'm intrigued by the number of people either saying that we shouldn't have bailed out our banks or that they should 'just fuck off'... etc. Millions of people's savings, investments and pensions are tied up with the banks and we've only to look at what happened when Equitable Life went under to see the catastrophic effect that had on people personally. My savings were in IceSave (remember that?) and that was not only a very bad experience for me personally but I also had to be compensated by the FSA (paid for by guess whom?). And if they 'just fuck off'... that's a really big hole in our economy we'd have to fill with ... what exactly?

Realise that banks and bankers have not acted well in recent years but treating them as the 'pantomime baddie' is bizarre.

Actually I also blame Gordon Brown for the wholesale deregulation of the sector (the FSA is a joke) from 1997 onwards which led other countries to follow suit. If you are going to have deregulation, as Brown appeared to want, you have to take the rough with the smooth i.e. when things start to go wrong you have to let some businesses fail. Others will take their places. The protectionist instinct which kicked in when the flip side of a free market became apparent worsened and prolonged the crisis. So on two fronts Gordon caused the banking crisis and subsequent credit crunch.

Guaranteeing the savings of personal investors would have been cheaper than the bail out. And as for Icesave, that paid excellent returns when doing well but was always a potentially risky investment and you were lucky the GB scheme bailed you out.

Isn't the banking levy enough on top of corporation tax and the other taxes eg NI that banks pay. Painting the image of banks and bankers as villains and wanting to "hurt" them is counterproductive. Like it or not our economy is very dependent on them and we need them if our economy is going to prosper.

"And as for Icesave, that paid excellent returns when doing well but was always a potentially risky investment and you were lucky the GB scheme bailed you out"

What you seem to be saying is that if RBS and Northern Rock had gone to the wall like Icesave and people with deposits higher than the FSA compensation scheme had lost their pensions and savings as a result that would have been OK with you because all of these people were a little stupid and 'taking a risk' anyway?

They weren't stupid. They looked for a good return and took it. That carries risk which they should have to carry, just as they enjoyed the benefit.

"The value of your investments can go down as well as up" as the small print constantly reminds us.

Cash ISAs - unlike stocks and share based plans - are not investments that can 'go down as well as up'.... neither are deposit and savings accounts. The pensioners queuing up outside Northern Rock with their shoppers did not deposit their life savings there on the basis that it was 'high risk, high reward' and would have lost everything over the FSA compensation figure if they'd followed your idea of 'let the banks sink'.

Then they should have spread their money, if they have that much of it.

So you just have a problem with people that have some money... that's it, is it?

People weren't complaining when banks risk taking was resulting in high rates of interest on their savings though were they.

Not in the least. I have a problem with people being happy to accept good returns and then bleating about the flip side if things go wrong.

"Then they should have spread their money, if they have that much of it."

wasn't that the point though, most of them did nt have that much of it and certainly not enough to spread it around between banks (which is different to spreading it between investments) most people have a portfolio with one bank in different types of investment. Also many of them had just their ISA or whatever, they cannot spread that around, it is not possible to do that really.

I think you're missing the point. People who had less than the FSA guarantee level have nothing to worry about and no need to spread their money about.

The robin hood tax is a dreadful idea anyway. It taxes banks on the number of transaction between it and other financial instittuions not on the the size of the banks balance sheet.

no, it is a good idea. the banks have had enough.