Tax on trades should be part of the plan

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Tax on Trades Should Be Part of Rescue Plan, Some Democrats Say

By Laura Litvan

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A group of House Democrats is proposing to make Wall Street companies and investors pay more of the cost of any financial rescue plan through a new tax.

In a letter sent late yesterday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 16 Democrats asked her to ensure any rescue legislation include a ``transaction tax'' on all U.S. stock trades and on other types of trades, such as credit default swaps, options and futures. They are proposing the tax would be at a rate of one quarter of one percent on all trades.

``The same Wall Street speculators and investors who are principally responsible for having caused this avoidable financial crisis and profited from it must now be required to pay for it, not U.S. taxpayers,'' according to the letter, which was signed by Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Pete Stark, a California Democrat.

In a news conference today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would support some mechanism that could return more funds to Treasury coffers if the $700 billion to be spent to acquire troubled investments isn't later recouped. She didn't endorse any specific proposal and suggested it is likely to be explored later.

[billyoc]

1. Yep. A 0.25% tax on trades would net us around 150 billion/yr.

[Mojambo]

3. That's universal health care. Right there. n/t

[Mojambo]

2. It's such a common sense good idea. It doesn't stand a chance.

Generates revenue, cuts down on speculation and doesn't really hurt main street Americans who may have long term retirement investments.

[Skink]

5. Every year sales tax goes up and Wall street doesn't even have one.

Unless you count fees. Come to think of it lets just take it out of the fees.

[OmahaBlueDog]

4. I'll go further. I'd trade them the lifting of cap gains if they'd pay 7% up front.

You win, you lose -- we don't care. We'll take our share now.