Robin Hood bank tax?

[Tangent Police]

nonegreen said:

Slartibartfast was on R4 this evening. His suggestion was to use the billions this trading tax would raise were it to be introduced internationally to pay for action against climate change...... AND.......helping to prevent death in child birth in the 3rd world.

Kin wonderful even that drongo Bono has made the connection between population and energy requirements. These bleedin greens are just thick as a pile of lavatory seats. Why spend money on windmills then increase the population? What a knob

What will happen is that those who can will avoid tax and those that are on PAYE will instigate a civil war against everyone who isn't.

I wonder if Bono's accountant allows him to "fund the community" or whether he's practises what the bankers preach.......

[thinfourth2]

So what happens when my company puts a grand in my bank account

will that get the nasty banker moving cash tax?

[Jasandjules]

Perhaps we could make it that MPs have to pay £1 into charity for each lie they tell?

[Dupont666]

Jasandjules said:

Perhaps we could make it that MPs have to pay £1 into charity for each lie they tell?

Or just not allow them to waste tax money on things like holidays/sight seeing tours of other countries, or even worse go and talk about world poverty whilst they fly first class to a 5* hotel in X resort...

In fact ban expenses, I dont get them for my job so why should they?

[theaxe]

Dupont666 said:

In fact ban expenses, I dont get them for my job so why should they?

Do you incur expenses in the course of doing your job? If so you should be entitled to them.

[Dupont666]

theaxe said:

Dupont666 said:

In fact ban expenses, I dont get them for my job so why should they?

Do you incur expenses in the course of doing your job? If so you should be entitled to them.

Im not allowed to claim all my expenses to get into work according to the gubberment... Even if the travelling is to and from work, yet MPs can.

[theaxe]

Dupont666 said:

theaxe said:

Dupont666 said:

In fact ban expenses, I dont get them for my job so why should they?

Do you incur expenses in the course of doing your job? If so you should be entitled to them.

Im not allowed to claim all my expenses to get into work according to the gubberment... Even if the travelling is to and from work, yet MPs can.

Well you can't claim expenses for travel to your normal place of work and I would hope that MPs can't either (ie. for travel from home to the constituency office or to Parliament if they live in London). But for MPs in the North I think it's reasonable to argue that Parliament isn't their usual place of work and so travel there should be expensible.

[fido]

Dupont666 said:

theaxe said:

Dupont666 said:

In fact ban expenses, I dont get them for my job so why should they?

Do you incur expenses in the course of doing your job? If so you should be entitled to them.

Im not allowed to claim all my expenses to get into work according to the gubberment... Even if the travelling is to and from work, yet MPs can.

Nope you can't claim travel to your fixed place of work - but if your fixed place of work was your office at home (and you have multiple clients) then you could claim - or at least i know consultants that do put their Travelcard on expenses.

[Fittster]

Ok, which one of your lot works for Goldman?

Goldman Sachs faces 'Robin Hood tax' vote-rigging claims

[HundredthIdiot]

Fittster said:

Ok, which one of your lot works for Goldman?

Goldman Sachs faces 'Robin Hood tax' vote-rigging claims

Gaming internet polls is now "vote-rigging"?

[Papoo]

Tonker;

I'm in no way clued up with the nitty-gritty of financial markets, but surely a HUGE amount of trades don't yield high profit margins. In which case, isn't 0.05% a MASSIVE dent in said profit?

Obviously, I'm not concerned it'll ever happen, but I feel for the folks in the UK's capital markets right now. This whole anti-banking campaign is nothing but a bloody farce which will drive all the talent from our one remaining world-class industry elsewhere.

I'm not a financier, but equally, I've left the UK's shores to ensure the morons in power don't recieve one more of my tax dollars to use in ruining the country. With the exception of healthcare (which I do believe to be a terrific system, compared to others)there is just no incentive, whatsoever, to remain in the UK. As a pilot, it speaks volumes, given that being part of the UK pilot workforce is one of the better places to earn such a living, yet there is still absolutely no pull to staying.

Bloody sad, in my opinion.

[ctallchris]

I think as soon as one country starts doing it everyone else would follow. After all what country want's to be put into the financial doghouse and would say no to billions in tax. After all international pressure has reduce the number of tax havens to practically zero.

As far as complexity goes it will probably cost millions.

One programmer to add a new subroutine.

10 testers to make sure everything goes smoothly

100 managers to make sure everything runs smoothly

1000 auditors just for the crack

[anonymous-user]

ctallchris said:

I think as soon as one country starts doing it everyone else would follow. After all what country want's to be put into the financial doghouse and would say no to billions in tax. After all international pressure has reduce the number of tax havens to practically zero.

disagree. london is the undisputed world leader in fx trading at 1.5 trillion usd a day. the government simply cannot afford to lose it and they would, overnight. besides, you really think hong kong are going to join brown and obama? like hell. even if they did manage to get every country in the world to tax fx transactions the vast majority of banks would just go non deliverable. thankfully there are plenty of 'tax havens' left in the world; without tax competition our polititians would tax us even more.

Edited by fbrs on Friday 12th February 21:08

[ctallchris]

fbrs said:

disagree. london is the undisputed world leader in fx trading at 1.5 trillion usd a day. the government simply cannot afford to lose it and they would, overnight. besides, you really think hong kong are going to join brown and obama? like hell. even if they did manage to get every country in the world to tax fx transactions the vast majority of banks would just go non deliverable. thankfully there are plenty of 'tax havens' left in the world; without tax competition our polititians would tax us even more.

Edited by fbrs on Friday 12th February 21:08

you rely on the will of one hell of a lot of people to move to china. possibly 20% of the people I work with would be willing to move overseas without demanding a serious increase of pay. i think about 5% would be willing to move to china. Now i don't work in a bank but everyone i work with is skilled enough to sell their skills nationally. Other countries offer better prospects than the uk but people still don't move. Unlike a some manufacturers where you would be able to hire a new workforce if you move your base of opperations if you want to move a skilled industry you have to rely on local tallent allready being there.
You can't train them while you build your factory because it takes a minimum of 10 years to train for the job.

Yes you can move and offer people massive pay rises but the nchances are the local governement will not like you bringing in large ammounts of forigen labour unless they have very low unemployment. The chances are you would end up paying so much that it would just be simpler and as profitable to grit your teeth and bear it and adjust your business processes to trade less frequently and therefore reduce the tax that is paid.

[anonymous-user]

ctallchris said:

you rely on the will of one hell of a lot of people to move to china.

i have sat on a beach in the caribbean and traded fx in london, similarly someone could sit in london and trade fx anywhere else in the world. its impossible to regulate... similar thinking drove all usd deposit trading to the euro money markets back in the 80's

[ctallchris]

fbrs said:

ctallchris said:

you rely on the will of one hell of a lot of people to move to china.

i have sat on a beach in the caribbean and traded fx in london, similarly someone could sit in london and trade fx anywhere else in the world. its impossible to regulate... similar thinking drove all usd deposit trading to the euro money markets back in the 80's

I wonder if it would be possible to develop a trading market for tax avoidance

[theaxe]

I love the idea that this tax will produce money from nowhere. Introduce this charge, banks widen their spreads and up the interest rates, the consumer pays.

People only like taxes that they think they won't have to pay, but to believe that this won't hit everyone is just naive.

[clarkey318is]

ctallchris said:

fbrs said:

ctallchris said:

you rely on the will of one hell of a lot of people to move to china.

i have sat on a beach in the caribbean and traded fx in london, similarly someone could sit in london and trade fx anywhere else in the world. its impossible to regulate... similar thinking drove all usd deposit trading to the euro money markets back in the 80's

I wonder if it would be possible to develop a trading market for tax avoidance

It's probably not that hard...go to some back end Caribbean island and nobody gives a st about anything there. I really don't think Brown has intelligence, as such.

[eldar]

Not being a banker, economist or celebrity, I don't understand this Robin Hood (or is it Tobin) tax.

Can some one explain it is simple terms that a financial ignoramus like me can understand?

[eldar]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks, Tonker.

Even to my untrained eye it seemed unworkable. I'd assumed I was missing the cunning bit.