Financial transfer tax

In view of the vat sums of tax money evidently going to be spent by the next government, of whatever political stripe, I would love to ask whether a financial transfer tax (FTT) is on any party’s agenda?

FTT was researched by one Tobin in the 1970s, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, so it is no wildcat theory. It has the lowest compliance cost, since it is collected by every bank merely deducting the set about from each withdrawal. Nowadays payments in cash are relegated to small dealing of no consequence in the scheme of things. FTT is naturally anathema to the multinationals who run the world – perhaps why it is so little publicised - but a rate of 0.5 per cent, in other words 50 cents on our grocery bill of $100, is obviously a minor burden in comparison to the $15, with quite big compliance costs built in, of GST. GST naturally hits hardest on those at the bottom of the heap, since all of their money is spent every week; the better-off can at least put off paying the tax by leaving money in the bank.

Fact known to very few – and no publicised – is that less than 10 per cent of the trade between nations is in goods, ie, food, fuel, machinery etc; 90 per cent, yes 90 per cent is currency traded at the rate of trillions of dollars equivalent per day. Unimaginable, ungraspable sums indeed. FTT should put a citizens are paying 15 per cent on every essential, from doctors visits to the last loaf they can afford.