Researchers support a European financial transactions tax in FairTax Policy Brief no.2
NEWS
In a recent policy brief from the FairTax project, researchers Danuše Nerudová, Margit Schratzenstaller and Veronika Solilová identify several advantages of introducing a financial transactions tax in the EU.
In FairTax Policy Brief no.2, “The Financial Transactions Tax as Tax-based Own Resource for the EU Budget” the researchers also present new estimations for potential revenues of a Financial Transactions Tax introduced by the 10 Member States forming a “Coalition of the Willing” within Enhanced Cooperation under a post-Brexit scenario.
The Policy Brief lists the following key findings:
A broad-based financial transactions tax (FTT) presents itself as a suitable instrument to simultaneously raise revenues and curb highly speculative and potentially destabilising short-term financial transactions.
The introduction of an FTT within Enhanced Cooperation in the EU may serve as a pilot, representing the first step towards an EU-wide implementation.
Under a post-Brexit scenario, an FTT introduced by a “Coalition of the Willing” including 10 EU Member States could yield € 4 to € 33 billion.
The FTT is an interesting option for tax-based own resources partially substituting current own resources to finance the EU budget, allowing Member States to cut their national contributions to the EU budget and thus creating budgetary space to cut national taxes more harmful for growth and employment (in particular the high taxes on labour).
