Austria Says EU Financial Transaction Tax Is on Wrong Track
- Finance minister calls for alternatives in Bloomberg interview
- 10-nation talks have bogged down repeatedly over seven years
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Talks on introducing a European financial transaction tax are headed in the wrong direction and need to change course or be scrapped, said Austrian Finance Minister Hartwig Loeger, who’s in charge of the project.
During years of debate, the scope of the proposed levy has been scaled back so much that it isn’t worth the effort anymore, Loeger said. “The broad tax base we had initially was repeatedly reduced in the course of the debate,” he said in an interview in Vienna on Tuesday. “There’s precious little meat left for a financial transaction tax that makes sense.”