What do you all think of the Robin Hood Tax?

[FiveOrangePips]

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Why does that make it bad Pox?

We need them byrel? Do they also need us?

It makes it bad because it could hurt smaller financial institutions as banks are being taxed on the number of transactions and not on the value of their assets.
Add to this that the Government wants to increase bank lending then imposing a tax on banks lending money to each other is neither sensible or desirable.

It is a tiny tax though and their profits per employee are estimated to be 26 times higher than the average in other industries.

Profits per employee being high just means that it isn't a labour intense industry.

So they don't make much profit then?

No they make large profits but they don't need very large workforces to make the profit

But the government's requirements for the banks doesn't suit the public's demands, and then the government doesn't stand up for what it wanted, it panders to the mob.

Banks are building up their balance sheets partly because it's the sensible thing to do, but primarily because they have been ordered to do it. They are obliged to have reserves of a certain size that were demanded by the regulator/ labour government. But the labour politicians would never say this, instead they would agree with whoever was interviewing them that it's disgraceful that the banks aren't lending.

As was said earlier, we all complain that the banks were lending irresponsibly, and some people blame them for the entire financial crisis, but then go on in the same breath to complain that they aren't lending to people who want a 100%+ LTV mortgage or a company with a not-too-viable business plan. We can't have it all.

The Robin Hood tax is just more pandering to the mob. We will pay for it somehow, whether through increased insurance charges or just greater costs on our day-to-day banking.

That'd be 'the mob' who bailed the banks out, Barbeasty. And are losing their jobs and the services we rely on as a result.

Women, families and the poor are taking the lion's share of the pain from the coalition's cuts. Yet the bankers carry on, with the same old culture that came within a hair's breadth of destroying the world economy, the same old ludicrous bribes for doing the job they are employed to do, and the same old arrogance towards anyone outside their charmed circle.

And you wonder that the public, who are paying to be treated like shit, are frustrated and angry?

It is not pandering to the mob, it is asking for a very tiny and reasonable, 0.05% tax on the banks'/hedge funds' etc profits.

The one thing this country needs is hr taxpayers. If we tax them too highly, they will pay tax in Geneva. Ask Xenia.

Creamleg we are talking about taxing banks and hedge funds here not individuals (not that I am against individuals paying more taxes, if they can afford too and if they are not happy then Geneva is welcome to them. Other countries have higher taxes than here and still seem to manage to have a strong economy).

We are all in it together after all, or does that only apply to certain parts of society?

This tax would damage market liquidity when we need to increase it and if imposed unilaterally would probably lead to some banks leaving the City of London and taking their jobs and tax payments with them. The banking levy already put in place by the Government is the best way of getting extra revenue from the banks without reducing competitiveness.

Agree with whoever said lets just try it. If it's so easy for them to move away then presumably it wouldn't be that hard for them to move back?

Surely it is our responsibility to be proactive and not just sit back and accept things as they are. The City is so full of smoke and mirrors. The whole point of each new financial 'product' it seems to be is to be a more complicated fiddle than the last. "Oh the little people. You are too thick to understand". Well yes you're right in one way. I will never understand how anyone earned a bonus of a kzillion pounds. It's sick.

It's always the people who work or have worked there who argue for keeping things just as they are. Funny that!

If it needs to happen elsewhere too in the G7 then lets keep campaigning for it FFS.

Under this government what with people being forced out of 'nice' areas and getting poorer and the schools in less affluent areas getting shitter and shitter (this will happen too i'm afraid) and the banks remaining untouched we are heading for a hugely divided society. Much less social mobility. To me this is all wrong wrong wrong. I don't want the cities to become full of ghettos.
big society my arse.

Sorry. I appreciate that this is a ranty post and not completely on topic. I should leave it to pan and the others who are undeniably more articulate than me. Just had to get it off my chest.

It is WRONG that we are so reliant on the financial sector.

" it is our responsibility to be proactive and not just sit back and accept things as they are. The City is so full of smoke and mirrors. The whole point of each new financial 'product' it seems to be is to be a more complicated fiddle than the last."

Allora - that reminded me of a book I keep meaning to read - Lars Kroijer "Money Mavericks: Confessions of a Hedge Fund Manager". According to one reviewer:

" it charts the founding, seemingly interminable rise and eventual closure of a fund which operated in London during the febrile years of 2002 to 2008. Shedding light on the incredible inside workings of hedge funds, it?s a tale of a bubble industry in a bubble town during the bubble years. It tells the story of some very smart people who were trying to do something that was incredibly hard: beat the market. If they failed, the repercussions would be swift and severe. If they succeeded, the rewards would be massive."

I certainly feel we all need to be better informed about financial markets. For example, the UK is the European capital for Hedge Funds (thanks in part to the last 2 governments) and we are heavily reliant on them for tax revenue - but most of us are clueless as to what they do.

According to my London based BIL, far too many truly rich people and companies avoid paying tax in this country with various methods of deceit.

Surely if you live in this country, you should pay taxes here too. Couldn't the government enforce this better, I know some of these tax avoiding people might move abroad in order to still avoid paying UK tax but I am guessing the majority wouldn't. After all they have the money to live abroad if they wanted to and they are still here.

Properly to simplistic an idea, but if I was ever lucky enough to have a large pot of cash, I am happy to pay taxes into the country which freely educated and gave me reasonable (free at POD) medical care.

" if I was ever lucky enough to have a large pot of cash, I am happy to pay taxes"

LOL!.. You may not move abroad but if you did have a large amount of cash you would want to make that money work for you as hard as possible if you had any sense. If I gave you £5000 tomorrow and you wanted to put it away safely for a while would you put it in a Cash ISA paying 2% interest with no tax deducted at source or volunteer to have it in a regular bank savings account paying 2% interest and losing 20% of that interest to tax?

Whatever your BIL says, it is very difficult to avoid paying tax without jumping through a lot of expensive hoops. But, then again, few people volunteer to pay more tax than they have to.

Allora - I can tell you how someone earns a seven figure bonus. By working fucking hard. My husband earns a decent living and we only see him at weekends. The rest of the time he is in town. He gets up at 5.30am every week day. He is at his desk by 7am and he doesn't leave until 7pm. He is also out three nights a week wining and dining clients (assuming they haven't already moved to Asia or Switzerland, as increasing numbers are). The Robin Hood tax will probably cause a number of the big banks to move offices abroad. They will keep a small office here of mainly back and mid office workers (they don't earn as much as the front office staff) and according the tax take for this country will decline.

Agree totally with pelvic, imposing this tax would be madness and would do great damage to our economy.

huddspur...as opposed to the great good the banking system has done recently you mean?

and pelvic, I very rarely get to see my DH at the weekends these days, because he works in the NHS and earns, oh, a 5 figure salary that's a long way under the child benefit cut off line and doesn't get any bonuses at all. If only working f;-)ing hard were all it took.

Just call me friar tuck.

The financial services industry has been the greatest wealth creator in our economy since the early 1990s. We are too reliant on it and need to diversify our economy but imposing punitive taxes on it causing it to move offshore is not the way to do this.

I agree huddspur that we definitely need to diversify - but is the amount the government have bailed the banks out for a mere blip compared with the amount of revenue they've generated? Where can I find the figures?

greatest wealth creator for who exactly? Not the ordinary people - but for those who are helping to widen the gap between the richest and poorest in society.

It is not a punitive tax it is 0.05% they keep 95.5% of their profits and we are not just talking banks here, so it is not just the banks that would contribute this very tiny tax.