The FTT: Perverse and unacceptable
30 May 2013 London
Image: Shutterstock
A recent paper has warned that current EU proposals for a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) will drive business away from London and to New York.
In a foreword to a new Centre for Policy Studies paper by John Chown, a founder of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Nigel Lawson wrote: "“As John Chown demonstrates in this paper, the coming EU Financial Transactions Tax is, if anything, even worse. Designed both to punish the bankers and to raise money for the EU budget, its principal effect will be to drive financial business away from the EU (including the UK) to more hospitable jurisdictions elsewhere."
"Belatedly conscious of this danger, the EU is now attempting to extend the FTT so that any transactions involving Eurozone securities of any kind, wherever they are conducted, are caught by the tax. This extraterritoriality may well be illegal: it is clearly unenforceable. And the US has already made clear that it will have none of it."
"There are only two world-class financial centres: London and New York. That it should be considered in the interests of Europe to drive business away from London, to the benefit of New York is both perverse and unacceptable. John Chown and the CPS have performed a valuable service in drawing attention to this complex but important issue.”
In a foreword to a new Centre for Policy Studies paper by John Chown, a founder of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Nigel Lawson wrote: "“As John Chown demonstrates in this paper, the coming EU Financial Transactions Tax is, if anything, even worse. Designed both to punish the bankers and to raise money for the EU budget, its principal effect will be to drive financial business away from the EU (including the UK) to more hospitable jurisdictions elsewhere."
"Belatedly conscious of this danger, the EU is now attempting to extend the FTT so that any transactions involving Eurozone securities of any kind, wherever they are conducted, are caught by the tax. This extraterritoriality may well be illegal: it is clearly unenforceable. And the US has already made clear that it will have none of it."
"There are only two world-class financial centres: London and New York. That it should be considered in the interests of Europe to drive business away from London, to the benefit of New York is both perverse and unacceptable. John Chown and the CPS have performed a valuable service in drawing attention to this complex but important issue.”
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