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Financial Transaction Tax Could Save the State (IL) -- and Clean Up the Exchanges
http://gapersblock.com/mechanics/2015/07/15/financial-transaction-tax-could-save-the-state----and-clean-up-the-exchanges/A lot of taxes are being proposed — sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes — as the state's budget stalemate grinds on and the city's financial crisis metastasizes.
But the powers that be have taken one tax off the table, and it's one that would target the very wealthy — the only ones benefiting from economic growth in recent decades: a financial transaction tax.
A small tax on trades on Chicago's futures exchanges (PDF) could raise billions of dollars, and traditional traders wouldn't even notice it, proponents say in a new report.
The group that would feel the pain would be high-frequency traders, who use computer algorithms to do hundreds of trades in a fraction of a second, inserting themselves between buyer and seller in order to extract a tiny profit, sometimes using fake orders to drive prices up or down to their advantage. They often make less than $1 on a deal, but they make up for it with massive volume.
But the powers that be have taken one tax off the table, and it's one that would target the very wealthy — the only ones benefiting from economic growth in recent decades: a financial transaction tax.
A small tax on trades on Chicago's futures exchanges (PDF) could raise billions of dollars, and traditional traders wouldn't even notice it, proponents say in a new report.
The group that would feel the pain would be high-frequency traders, who use computer algorithms to do hundreds of trades in a fraction of a second, inserting themselves between buyer and seller in order to extract a tiny profit, sometimes using fake orders to drive prices up or down to their advantage. They often make less than $1 on a deal, but they make up for it with massive volume.
And the country, if you do it on the NYSE as well.
