Demand a 1% WALL STREET SALES TAX

even a half percent would make a big difference. The key question is on what basis and at which point transactions would be taxed. Both would be a huge part of the argument.

The basis is the economic disintegration of the World Economy. Real production is down while financial speculation is up; this is why GDP seems to be within its normal levels. However, the rest of the world is in a much worse IMF-wrought destruction and we could use this money for a new lend-lease or Marshall Plan type program to help recover the world economy among numerous other things.

This tax includes stamping transaction taxes onto over-the-counter derivatives, regulated derivatives and other financial transactions instead just collecting on the eventual profit. Flash trading will be rather hard to tax but with a will there is a way. The point here is that the tax also quells dangerous types of financial speculation because the tax can be cumulative on an amount of money being passed back and forth.

Luckily, there is also floor that doesn't effect those middle class people with 401ks or other investments.

Lastly, we cannot call for half percent. If you compromise the demand before you start then you open yourself up to getting less and less.

We should do it right after capitol gains are taxed at the same rate as paychecks.

I make my living from investment income but I'd welcome such a tax. I'd welcome it because it would take a lot of the profit out of HFT and that would have a chance to unskew the market, at least partially.

I'm for it because it's fair and wouldn't be a hardship on anyone but investment bankers engaging in HFT.

I'm for it because it rewards people who hold equities for a long time, rather than holding them for a nanosecond in the hope of driving the stock price up a quarter of a point. It encourages making money on the health of the economy, not as a gambling exercise.

I'm for it because it's overdue.

That's often a synonym for "biased empathy."

My mother was a lifelong Democrat, but I usually fought with her. Every decision she liked had to do with money. If it prevented money from going to those she didn't like, she was against it. If it helped money to go to those she did like she was for it.

She called it a variety of names. But pretty much everything had a $.

Our fights were usually when she said she was on the side of morality, while the dirty Republicans only cared about $, so everything with them had to have a dollar payback.

For her abortion was $. Her claim was that she just held it to be a moral issue, but every example she ever gave was $. It prevented women from having to pay for their children, being held hostage by deadbeat dads. It allowed women to work and earn $. for (R) abortion was a purely financial issue. She could never say how, exactly, but it usually involved keeping women out of the workplace so that men would make more money. Still don't quite see how keeping the woman surrounded by expensive kids made for a wealtheir man. Eh.

Taxes on investments are about money. So yes, this subject is about money.

because of the new sales tax, elderly people can be effectively cared for by the state once again. Or at least be able to provide a pool of money to give to hospitals as compensation for services or whatever. sounds like canada but with that much money we would be able to open more hospitals and care facilities for the elderly. With the sales tax building or paying for whatever we need will be no problem. And to be honest if elderly people saw the return on investment of their 401k versus what the sales tax did for people I bet a lot would agree that it was worth it.

in that they affect the poor disproportionately in comparison to the rich. Like the post above mine, I ask your opinion on raising the income tax - progressively, of course.

for now..

Did you mistreat a rich person at some time in your life and you feel the need to atone?

Because I didn't.

Sales taxes favor the rich at the expense of the poor.

Or, to give you the benefit of the doubt, are you talking about the sales tax on financial transactions?

The elderly that are living on investments are primarily living on dividends. If they have a $1 million portfolio that they're actively trading, they aren't going to be in poverty either.

Everyone pays their fair share.

They're already paying their fair share.

Yes there are exemptions for those using it as a saving mechanism for retirement (401ks, 403b, there is a million dollar floor I believe .)

Another basis of the tax and I hope you can all understand this, is that Wall Street and the Chicago Exchange pay no real tax despite having the largest amount of turnover. Most other industries that actually produce something are taxed but Wall Street generally produces nothing and destroys a lot more through toxic derivative trading. There is a state tax on Wall Street but most of that is returned to the banks for fear that they will go to New Jersey.

We can not just say this is a good idea we must DEMAND it! This is the only way to keep and expand entitlements as well as begin our New Deal.

Sure and Bernie Sanders was talking about a .5 % tax on regular transactions and a .005% on derivatives but we do not think that is enough. The tax is double-edged sword; it is for regulation and revenue. Market volatility has been steadily rising since the dismantling of Bretton-Woods, and the Reagan and Clinton bank deregulation. Therefore, in order to quell volatility we need regulation of this sort.

Derivatives (which include mortgage backed securities) are what caused the meltdown in 2008. The last thing we need to do is charge a lower tax on them, because then the big banks will focus more of their resources on them.

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elaboration would help, unless if you are trolling

Put on a 1% tax, and you wipe them right out of a job. Don't be so greedy. Put on a 1/10 of 1% tax, and the government rakes in more than it could possibly imagine due to full compliance brought on by minimal pain brought on by the tax. Put on a tax that is more than the business can tolerate without being driven offshore, and the government gets 1% of nothing. The French government did this years ago, forcing anyone selling gold to pay an 8% tax off the top to the government. So guess where the French people sell their gold? Most of it in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Switzerland or for cash at home. Had they made it half a per cent, the government would have gotten full compliance and the proceeds put right back into the economy, where they rake off 21% or so in VAT anyway.

That's one thing that I never see any talk about. My best friend trades for a living. His wife works part time and he has two kids. As best I can tell, he makes between 50k-75k per year (some years probably more, some years probably less). He also pays for his own insurance, etc.

Now, he does say that it's better than actually working for a living and I agree. But I've also seen him sweat it out (we're really close and I'm privy to stuff that our other friends aren't).

Now, just like the lower income factory worker, a sales tax would affect him more than it would somebody like Mitt Romney. I also realize that some will just tell him to go get a real job (which I can understand) but it's not like the market is just gonna close down or he's gonna stop doing something he's good at.

Anyway, just my 2 pennies.

Then he could work 40 hours a week like the rest of us. Sorry, but I don't think we need to make special rules to protect day traders, just like I don't think hedge fund managers should be paying only capital gains rate on their income.

make very little money in a year. If the rest of us have regular jobs, we just get a paycheck. He, on the other hand, has had years where he made little or no money. He has had quarters where he lost money. None of us, if we keep our jobs, have to worry about that.

I tried trading for a while and was crushed by the commissions. The small trader would have commissions and a sales tax to hurdle.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/demand-wall-street-sales-tax/Wdq2Rz2Y

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"The fiscal problems of the United States are largely due to the fact that Wall Street pays no taxes. While working families pay on average 7% in sales tax for the necessities of life, Wall Street speculators pay no tax on a yearly turnover of over $5 quadrillion (5,000 trillion dollars) in derivatives, futures, stocks, bonds and other securities on US exchanges. A 1% sales tax on this turnover, equally divided between the federal and state governments, largely solves the budget deficit at all levels of government."

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Actually, I don't even think it would have to be as high as 1%. One tenth of 1% would net $5 Trillion PER YEAR! Half could be dedicated to reducing the national debt and half could be for infrastructure, education, healthcare etc. The debt would be gone in less than 20 years and our issues with Social Security and Medicare. I still think they should raise or eliminate the wage cap for SS, but this would be a huge step in the right direction, and who can argue against 1/10th of 1%?

purchases?

redemptions?

assets?

What if the assets are international?

The problem with impulsive ideas is that...people don't think about them.

We aren't inventing the wheel here. However, if all financial transactions were taxed at 1%, that would be 1/100th of $5 QUADRILLION ($5,000,000,000,000,000) of trades per year. That's far more than is needed and likely the GOP and maybe even some Democrats would object. 1% would $50 Trillion. If were made it .1%, it would still raise $5 Trillion PER YEAR and it would be hard to argue that Wall Street can't afford a tenth of a percent. In the interest of paying down the national debt, this seems like a no brainer to me.