Tobin Tax

Presentation on "Controlling Casino Capital", World Social Forum, Porto Allegre

World Social Forum - Porto Alegre - Jan 25-30, 2001

Robin Round
Policy Analyst
Halifax Initiative Coalition

We use money everyday. Money is a tool; a means to simplify transactions in an economy based on the exchange of goods and services. But the way most of us use money is old fashioned, out of date. Money is no longer a means of exchange but an end in itself. We live in the era of the commodification of money, an era where money has become divorced from the real economy it was originally designed to serve.

Is the Tobin Tax Practicable? June 7, 2000

Is the Tobin Tax Practicable?

Rodney Schmidt
International Development Research Centre
Government of Canada (Vietnam office)
Tel/Fax (84-4) 942-0177
E-mail veem@hn.vnn.vn

7 June 2000

The proposed Tobin tax is a percentage of the quantity of domestic currency converted into foreign currency. It would be collected on all such conversions of domestic currency, and would be treated by partid be treated by participants in the foreign-exchange market as an added cost to each foreign-exchange transaction. The tax cost would be equivalent to the payment processing costs which, though very small, are currently paid on each foreign-exchange transaction.

The Tobin-Type Tax - Debunking the Myths

The Tobin-Type Tax - Debunking the Myths

(This article in Spanish is on this link)

Currency transactions taxes such as the Tobin-type tax 1 are often dismissed by critics before all the arguments have been heard. They view the tax as too difficult to adopt and too easy to avoid. Much criticism is ill-informed or designed to stifle debate. Here are the most common myths and our response to them:

A TOBIN-TYPE TAX WILL HIT THE POOR
The tax is a progressive one, designed to target only those profiting from destabilising currency speculation. The poor don't flip millions of dollars a day on currency and bond markets, the world's biggest banks and investment firms do. This tax will hit them.

Paper on the Feasibility of a Foreign Exchange Transactions Tax - March 27, 1999

A Feasible Foreign Exchange Transactions Tax

Rodney Schmidt*
Research Associate
North-South Institute
55 Murray Street, Suite 200
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1N 5M3
Fax: (613) 241-7435

Program Advisor
Vietnam Economic and Environment Management
International Development Research Centre
40 Nguyen Van Ngoc
Hanoi, Vietnam
Fax: (84-4) 766-0469
E-mail: veem@hn.vnn.vn


March 1999

Abstract

Your Letter One Year After - March 23, 1999

Dear                  

On March 23rd, 1999, the Canadian Parliament demonstrated world leadership when it passed motion M-239 urging Canada to "enact a tax on financial transactions in concert with the international community." This unprecedented action was viewed by many as an important first step in controlling destabilising speculation on financial markets, the wild and anarchic behaviour of which threatens all the economies of the world.

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