Green Party Policy: Equity and Bonds Trading 1% Transaction Charge

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Darragh McD

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Hi All, First time poster here so apologies if I've posted in the wrong section.

Came across a local Green Party members post on social media today and would like to put it forward for discussion to see if everyone here see's it as strange and misguided as I do.

The gist of it:
"By introducing a Financial Transaction Tax, which amounts to between 0.01% and 0.1% on trading in shares, bonds and derivatives the Irish exchequer could raise €300m - €500m."

A few points:
1. I've searched the Green Party web page and tried to find if this is an economic policy of theres or just this particular candidates personal opinion. They have no economic policies up at all which leads me to worry that this might be a party wide outlook.

2. Surely this is an stupid policy, the resulting charges will bring up the costs for everyone attempting to invest in equities themselves firstly, but perhaps more importantly will have a knock on effect in the funds industry by raising already high management charges further as the companies will need to make up the cost of swapping equities and bonds in and out in their active management (or use this new tax as an excuse to raise them anyway).

3. With the taxation on entry and exit for funds, high dirt rate and high capital gains tax to name but a few. Are people really thinking the investment industry as a whole need more taxation? How is anyone expected to grow their own wealth when any means to try is taxed so heavily that you could be waiting years before seeing any form of return on your initial investment.

Any comments would be welcome, trying to wrap my head around this all day and hoping its not going to be a party wide policy. Not because I'm a supporter but purely because I can't believe anyone running for government could believe this is a good idea?
 
I think it's a variation on the Tobin Tax - a variant of which was recognised as a potential EU policy in 2009. It couldn't be brought in locally would have to be on a worldwide basis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax
Agreed.
It's a good idea but only if every country brought it in at the same time.
Leo Varadkar said it was a good idea at the pre-election debate on TV held at the Facebook office in Dublin.
 
1% would be a bit unwieldy but 0.1% or 0.01% wouldn't be too bad I suppose.
All 3 figures are mentioned in the first post.
 
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