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H.R. 4191 Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act And The 1% Temporary Tobin Transparent Total Transaction Tax
At this point, it makes good sense to review what can be actually be fixed in our present tax system by the 1%TT.
First, enormous man hours and monies are lost complying with a punitive tax code longer than the Bible and more confusing. The majority of IRS employees cannot give consistent correct answers to many tax issues, leading to unproductive legal disputes. The IRS has been abused as a political weapon of cash destruction.
Second, Corporations and Wealthy Individuals lobbied the tax code with foreign emoluments to eliminate competition and line their purses. They bought tax credits, rulings and created tax-exempt entities that did not always benefit the silent majority.
Two Treasury Secretaries and Speakers responsible for the IRS avoided personal taxes with special interest legislation. Some corporations complaining about 35% US corporate tax rates being the highest in the world, paid no unitary tax on foreign subsidiary income as American citizens do, and had effective tax rates in the low single digits, or even received tax refunds while reporting record profits on Wall Street.
Third, we see in the 2010 Federal Budget that Corporate Banks and Brokers do not pay their fair share. In 2010 the President expects American Citizens and small businesses to pay $2 Trillion in income and payroll taxes, while Corporations pay $222 Billion. This is 9 to 1 inequity is the sort that creates market crashes and revolutions.
Is it not proper that Banks and Brokers who eliminated protective regulations like the 1933 Glass Steagall separate business from speculation to correct the same financial errors that caused the Great Depression?
Is it not right that Banks and Brokers who passed their taxes on to American Citizens be required to pay their fair share now?
The City and Wall Street created Casinos. They poofed $604 Trillion in exempted, unpriced, unregulated, unsecured, untransparent Over-The-Counter derivatives. They encouraged Congress to borrow and spend the Social Security Trust, $12 Trillion so far to cover $106 Trillion in unfunded government agency mandates.
These unfounded mandates facing Congress and our Country include Environment, Healthcare, Mortgage and Pension guarantees and Social Security. Is it not right that Banks and Brokers who financed this mess and were bailed out by the very same people hurt most by it, support our America as good corporate citizens?
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
A 1% transaction tax means you’ll instantly lose 2% on every investment in the markets you make. 1% in & 1% out. Who would invest in the stock market with that fee? Between that & capital gains, the average return on a stock would be 0%. Again, who would invest in the stock market which gives the monetary fuel for companies to hire & pay their workers & expand their plants? LOL You’re nuts. Nice way to cause a 2nd crash of the markets.
January 4th, 2010 at 1:24 am
You may be naive Jack, myopically repeating Wall Street doublespeak.
They cite free market liquidity while rigging the game and depending on government for handouts and bailouts when they lose. Yet Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle of Vanguard back the transaction tax among others who know markets.
To paraphrase Keynes, the purpose of the transaction tax is to return constructive enterprise to the casino while preserving liquidity and solvency. Many people the last 10 years in the real and stock markets wish all they had lost was 2% on the investments they made, instead of half their life savings. There is always a cost of doing business Jack. For example, investment bankers took 10% fees on many deals for over a century and no one complained. Hedge fund managers took more. For too long Wall Street scalped clients for free rides and bonuses. Once respected institutions gambled away the rent money, expecting to be made whole by Taxpayers and the Fed and keep their bonuses. No more moral hazard! Markets may in fact crash from decades of deficits compounding to the trigger point of widespread defaults and implosion beyond what government can rescue. Treasury and other markets will certainly crash if Washington and Wall Street do not reign in borrowing and spending, and figure out a productive way to handle $604 Trillion in derivatives, $106 Trillion in unfunded agency mandates and debts exceeding the GDP. Interest on non-productive government debt is the fourth largest 2010 budget item, usury compounding to terminal velocity. Maybe if you reread the post again you will understand the 1% Temporary Transaction Tax replaces all other unproductive taxes including capital gains. Much market activity became no longer productive, but speculative, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Dark Pool High Freq Proprietary Trading does not raise capital for productive plants and workers, but increases debts from unproductive government, particularly when taxpayers are robbed to support gambling. In fact, last year, long-term investors bought $66 in bond funds for every dollar in equity funds. And their commissions and fund fees in many cases were more than 1%…Regards*Rich