Wall Street Should Pay a Sales Tax, Too

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/06/wall-street-should-pay-sales-tax-too

In case there was any doubt, the presidential election fight has confirmed that blasting Wall Street, even eight years after the financial crisis, is still a vote-getter.

Hillary Clinton has said she’d like to jail more bankers. Donald Trump has skewered the hedge fund managers who are “getting away with murder.” And Bernie Sanders has made Wall Street accountability a centerpiece of his campaign.

Of course, financial industry lobbyists aren’t about to take this lying down. In recent weeks, they’ve turned up the heat on lawmakers to block one particular measure that Sanders has mentioned in nearly every stump speech: taxing Wall Street speculation.

Americans are used to paying sales taxes on basic goods and services, like a spring jacket, a gallon of gas, or a restaurant meal. But when a Wall Street trader buys millions of dollars’ worth of stocks or derivatives, there’s no tax at all.

Sanders has introduced a bill called the Inclusive Prosperity Act, which would correct that imbalance by placing a small tax of just a fraction of a percent on all financial trades. It wouldn’t apply to ordinary consumer transactions such as ATM withdrawals or wire transfers.

Wall Street lobbyists are claiming that such taxes would still hurt mom-and-pop investors. The Investment Company Institute, which represents the trading arms of J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and the leading hedge funds, recently fired off a letter to Congress arguing that a Wall Street speculation tax would “harm all investors, especially middle-income American workers saving for retirement.”

[TreasonousBastard]

1. A nickel a trade wouldn't hurt any of us, but...

it sure would slow down program trading, short selling, and speculation.