{"id":236402,"date":"2016-04-06T22:43:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T22:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/wall-street-should-pay-a-sales-tax-too\/"},"modified":"2016-04-06T22:49:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T22:49:09","slug":"wall-street-should-pay-a-sales-tax-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/wall-street-should-pay-a-sales-tax-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street Should Pay a Sales Tax, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton has said she\u2019d like to jail more bankers. Donald Trump has skewered the hedge fund managers who are \u201cgetting away with murder.\u201d And Bernie Sanders has made Wall Street accountability a centerpiece of his campaign.<\/p>\n

Of course, financial industry lobbyists aren\u2019t about to take this lying down. In recent weeks, they\u2019ve turned up the heat on lawmakers to block one particular measure that Sanders has mentioned in nearly every stump speech: taxing Wall Street speculation.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 worth of stocks or derivatives, there\u2019s no tax at all.<\/p>\n

\"wall-street-sales-tax\"<\/p>\n

(Photo: Elvert Barnes \/ Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sanders has introduced a bill called the Inclusive Prosperity Act<\/a>, which would correct that imbalance by placing a small tax of just a fraction of a percent on all financial trades. It wouldn\u2019t apply to ordinary consumer transactions such as ATM withdrawals or wire transfers.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> to Congress arguing that a Wall Street speculation tax would \u201charm all investors, especially middle-income American workers saving for retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, the type of tax Sanders is promoting would target the high rollers in the financial casino. Because the tax applies to every trade, it would hit the traders engaging in computerized split-second stock-flipping the hardest. That\u2019s a good thing, because that kind of trading makes markets less stable and adds no real value to the Main Street economy.<\/p>\n

For ordinary investors in low-turnover pension funds, the costs would be negligible \u2014 like a tiny insurance fee to protect against crashes caused by reckless and often automated speculation.<\/p>\n

Under the Sanders plan, the tax rate would range from 0.005 percent to 0.5 percent, depending on the financial instrument. By contrast, ordinary sales taxes currently average 8.4 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition to discouraging dangerous speculation, such taxes would also raise money that could be spent on urgent needs, like making college affordable and fixing our crumbling roads and bridges.<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s hard to know how traders will react, it\u2019s difficult to calculate exactly how much money we\u2019re talking. Robert Pollin, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, predicts the Inclusive Prosperity Act could generate around $300 billion<\/a> per year in new federal tax dollars. The Tax Policy Center<\/a> estimates that a financial transaction tax with a slightly lower rate could raise up to $541 billion over 10 years.<\/p>\n

More than 30 countries<\/a> already have forms of speculation taxes that raise billions of dollars per year. These include many fast-growing financial markets, such as the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Switzerland. In the European Union<\/a>, 10 countries have committed to implementing the world\u2019s first regional transaction tax.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s encouraging to see Wall Street lobbyists agitated over the possibility of a speculation tax. It means this option is finally gaining the traction it deserves.<\/p>\n

The post Wall Street Should Pay a Sales Tax, Too<\/a> appeared first on OtherWords<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019d like to jail more bankers. Donald Trump has skewered the hedge fund managers who are \u201cgetting away with murder.\u201d And Bernie Sanders has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-236402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-newswire","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}