, Columnist
The Robin Hood Tax Is Dead. Just Say So.
A dwindling number of European countries want to adopt a tax on financial transactions. It won't work.
The Robin Hood tax idea is dead. It needs to be buried.
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A handful of European Union nations is trying to maintain the fantasy that a tax on financial transactions makes sense. After five years of jawboning, negotiating and backtracking, they need to face up to the reality that the tax is unworkable, unwarranted and unwanted.
The latest twist in the saga saw Wolfgang Schaeuble, a key advocate of the levy, returning full circle to the original 2011 call for a global toll rather than just an EU rule. Engaging the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to advocate for the tax, the German finance minister said a few days ago, might break the impasse that's seen his coalition of the willing shrink to just 10 EU countries: