Europe’s Tax on Financial Trades Is a Risky Bet
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May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Millions of Europeans are about tobecome the subjects of a vast social experiment. What’stroubling is how little anyone understands about where it mightlead.
A total of 11 European Union member states -- includingFrance, Germany, Italy and Spain, but not the U.K. -- plan tointroduce a small tax on financial transactions by the beginningof 2014. Financial institutions will pay 0.1 percent on allstock and bond trades, and 0.01 percent on derivatives. Althoughtaxes that are at least crudely similar exist in about 40nations around the world, the European measure will be the firstintroduced on such a large scale.