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30 Jan 2012

Sarkozy's 0.1% FTT - a joke?

There's a long way between the 0.1% FTT that Nicolas Sarkozy announced on the television last night and the sort of flat rate universal tax that I'm pushing for. The proof? According to the French Finance ministry, the tax should raise about 1 billion euros per year.

According to the numbers provided by the Bank for International Settlements, financial transactions in France topped  €268 trillion in 2010.  A 0.1% FTT applied to that should generate 268 billion euros, not one.

Clearly, he doesn't intend to apply the tax to more than a few elements. And since it won't be introduced until the 1st August, it's all dependent on whether or not he gets elected in the Presidential elections in May.
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4 comments:

  1. Simon Thorpe31 January 2012 at 11:52

    Hi Simon, 

    It would be very interesting to understand, which transactions Sarkozy is targeting and what the exceptions are and why.

    Generally it would be interesting to investigate the different transaction types and the effects of taxes on them.

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  2. Simon Thorpe31 January 2012 at 16:01

    Christian,

    Apparently, it's just going to be applied to Share trading (like the Stamp duty paid in the UK, which raises 4 billion a year) plus a particular type of Credit Default Swaps (CDSs). It's clearly  a long long way from what was originally planned when it was annouced on the 14 september 2011 when they were talking about 50-60 billion euros. Clearly, the lobbies have had a go. There's an article about it in Le Monde lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/article/2012/01/30/la-taxe-sarkozy-une-taxe-tobin-en-peau-de-chagrin_1636229_1471069.html

    Simon

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  3. Simon Thorpe2 February 2012 at 09:18

    Well it is a start. It is probably going to be more important what Hollande wants to do with it. 

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  4. Simon Thorpe3 February 2012 at 01:40

    I think Sarkozy just want to fool people. 0.1% is nothing really! I don't really believe Hollande is going to make a difference either.

    ReplyDelete