From City AM:
Why no mention of perhaps the oldest financial transaction tax in the world – the UK’s stamp duty. It’s been running since 1694, is levied at 0.5 per cent, and raises £3bn a year. Why do opponents only ever mention the failed Swedish example?
Jon Slater.
I'm not sure if he's arguing for or against transaction taxes, but it is staggering how inconsistent the anti-TT people are.
As far as I can see, Stamp Duty is a bad tax, so let's rail against that before we start making snide comments about other countries' tax systems. And if I'm wrong, then surely we should be encouraging other countries to introduce a 0.5% charge on sales and purchases of shares (most countries which had such a tax have phased it out over the last ten or twenty years).
Thinking ahead
2 hours ago
3 comments:
http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/48675-amorous-bull-damages-u-s-deputy-s-patrol-car
The great thing about stamp duty is that it's led to valuable 'innovations' such as equity swaps and spread betting. Not only do they avoid stamp duty, but, in the case of spread betting, income tax and/or capital gains tax too! Correct me if I'm wrong though .MW
SB, thanks.
M, good point. It was a policy decision by the government to exempt spread betting from normal tax, but I think they spotted right away that most spread betters lose money so they would end up claiming net tax relief for losses; it's the same for normal gambling. The spread bet company makes money of course, but that's taxable.
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