Posted on 12/21/2009 7:01:19 AM PST by blam
Obama's Planned 400% Excise Rip Off Tax
Politics / US Politics
Dec 21, 2009 - 05:09 AM
By: Michael_S_Rozeff
The Wall Street Journal brings more bad news. A headline reads "Lawmakers Weigh a Wall Street Tax." The first mention of this was in October. The proposal has not died as Congress seeks new ways to finance its profligate spending. Both houses are considering legislation.
The tax would fall on financial exchanges of all kinds. It is not a tax on Wall Street. It is a tax on anyone who buys and sells securities.
James Tobin originated the notion in the 1970s. Larry Summers supported it. Robert Kuttner supports it. Thats three Keynesian economists right there. It must be a bad idea.
The tax seeks to raise $100 to $150 billion by taxing the value of every financial trade. The rate on stocks would be 0.25 percent. That does not sound like much, but its actually huge compared to what investors pay today when they transact.
The brokerage cost of transacting is as little as $7 for a $10,000 or a $100,000 or even a $1,000,000 transaction. Thats 0.07 percent, or 0.007 percent, or 0.0007 percent, respectively.
The transactions tax would be $25 or $250 or $2,500 on these transactions, respectively. Thats $25 added to $7, $250 added to $7, and $2,500 added to $7.
Due to the quirks of influence-peddling, the proposed tax would be 0.02 percent on options, futures, and other derivatives.
In the 1960s it was quite costly to transact in stocks. Commissions are part of those costs, and they were 1 percent or so. After a few decades of hard work, the industry got the costs down considerably.
A well-known broker charges $7 a trade in any size and provides a more than satisfactory complement of other services. If a 0.25 percent tax goes in, the cost of a $10,000 trade becomes $32.
The tax is 3.57 times the brokerage cost of $7. This is an excise tax of 357 percent on this size trade. For a $100,000 trade, the cost is $257. The tax is 35.7 times the cost of $7. The excise tax rate is 3,570 percent.
With such a tax in place, far fewer transactions will occur. Short-term trading will be severely curtailed. The revenues from this tax will not be anywhere near the estimates.
They assume that the number of transactions will not decline, but trading will drop off a cliff.
[snip]
This will kill the broker-dealers, large and small!
Note that the government’s favored investment device, the derivative is taxed at 1/12 the rate of an honest stock transaction.
Derivatives are the source of our trouble.
Whats wrong with a little marxist philosophy comeing face to face with capitalism? Specially when the marxism is backed by the Government?
Just the beginning of thecorruption and destruction of capital markets, thats all. Nothing to be concerned about.
This should help kill the values of the shares of the “fat cat” corporations.
Welcome to “tombstone”.
Why, it’s just a pittance, a mere annoyance. Those Wall Street fat cats should be doing more to help pay for their past sins anyway. /s/
Go over the "Investment News", and click on the articles about all this reform and FINRA.
The BD's & RR's are furious.
But all the morons that voted for Zero are going to love Zero's move down the road...
The transfer of their 401(k) etc into a new Gov't Annunity as proposed by Cal (D) Rep. Miller.
This is the nudge that will force people into this paultry investment w/ 3% returns and a built in 50% Death Tax....
I’m surprized we haven’t heard about a federal real estate transfer tax too. (So many taxes, just not enough time to pass them all.)
When do you think a few people will start to scream about this on the news? Brinker also said, "If you live in a high state tax state - say Calif - then that 64% goes to over 70%."
Hmmm...I thought they already passed this in the House a week to 10 days ago?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405744/posts
Hopey Changey.
Folks, remember to tax those that enabled the one. In this case, lets kill NYC and State. They so love socialism that they really can’t argue they should not tax their only golden goose to pay for all that equality of result they want. Lets tax the sh*t out of NY, in the name of bammycare. All hail the dear reader.
I love it when the government assumes stuff. Trading won’t go away? HA! Smokers won’t quit? HA! You’d think that the nut cases would take just a few minutes to look at history before they institute new taxes!
All of mine have. I have Gone Galt.
Screw the Coup.
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