Various of the London law and financial firms have now seen the details of what the European Commission is proposing as the financial transactions tax.
It is, to put it very politely indeed, something of a dogs' dinner. As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't cover spot FX transactions: it also doesn't cover commodities. Which will be a great annoyance to some who have been campaigning for just this tax as they would like it to reduce commodity speculation.
One of the companies looking over it is Clifford Chance and their report contains this great line:
The FTT is therefore perhaps the first tax in history which is being proposed in the knowledge it will reduce tax revenues.
While the tax itself will of course raise some revenue, its impact on GDP will be to shrink it, meaning that there will be less income from other taxes.
There is, therefore, no money to spend on the euro, bailing Greece out, reducing poverty in the Third World or battling climate change.
There just isn't any extra money at all: which means that there's really not that much point in having it.
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