GreenTraderTax

Transaction Tax: What's in It for Buffett?

Buffett's mouth seems to be as big these days as his net worth, wisdom and ego. Last year on the Obama campaign trail, as an adviser to candidate Obama, Buffett advocated higher marginal income tax rates and estate taxes too. He gave Obama the cover he needed to preach higher taxes. Yet, Buffett continues to dodge both income and estate taxes with enormous contributions to tax-deductible charitable trusts, which he along with his buddy Bill Gates still control (the use of those funds). Don’t get me wrong, his charity is fantastic and appreciated by many. My beef with Buffett is that he acts like the common man and claims to be altruistic at the core. His investment in Goldman Sachs during the market meltdown was helpful to turning the markets around, but it also helped him big time. If the meltdown continued, Buffett would have been creamed on his derivatives and insurance and reinsurance company investments, yet he did not disclose that aspect in the media. It’s easy for a mega-billionaire to preach about higher income, estate and financial-transaction taxes, yet he won’t be the one being put out of business over these new taxes. Like the John Bogle, the ancient mutual fund visionary, they both advocate buy and hold investing and they don’t want American doing short-term trading. The small business trader will bear the brunt of a financial-transaction tax along with the retail investor.

Investors Beware: Taxes on Stock Trades Are Getting Closer

Rally Congress Action Petition:
rallycongress.com/.../
Save traders' jobs: Do not enact a financial-transaction tax.
Traders, please join us by speaking out to defend your job and business from the government’s tax axe.

Kindly click the Rally Congress link above to read and sign our petition. While you are at our Rally Congress page, please also send this letter (or your own customized version) to your Congressman and distribute it to your social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn). You can offer your comments on that page too. Please help spread the word on trader message boards and in our trader community. We need as much support as possible to win here.
Rally Congress RSS/XML Feed:
rallycongress.com/.../

GreenTraderTax Blog:
Archived blog articles on the financial-transaction tax. Click here www.greencompany.com/b... to access the entire archives.

Nov 25 09 - Financial-transaction tax: Not dead globally
Nov 24 09 - Save traders' jobs: Do not enact a financial-transaction tax
Nov 20 09 - Financial-transaction tax update 2: Global consensus needed
Nov 19 09 - Financial-transaction tax update 1 (11/19)
Nov 18 09 - More thoughts on the financial-transaction tax (Nov. 17, 2008)
Nov 09 09 - Financial-transaction tax is dead on arrival globally, which is good news locally
Oct 21 09 - Financial-transaction tax remains a hot button issue
Sep 03 09 - AFL-CIO lends support to a dreaded financial-transaction tax
Aug 06 09 - Traders Association
May 14 09 - 2010 Obama Budget Tax Proposals: Some Clarifications
May 12 09 - New potential attack on 60/40 treatment for dealers
Mar 05 09 - SEC raising fees
Mar 04 09 - Rep. Peter DeFazio defends financial-transaction tax on CNBC
Feb 27 09 - Did Chairman Frank say the financial-transaction tax is on hold pending Wall Street payback of TARP funds?
Feb 19 09 - Financial-transaction Tax Reintroduced in House as H.R. 1068
Jan 14 09 - Potential Financial-Transaction Tax of 0.25% on proceeds and purchases (a large article including background research, including key legislative history).

A Transaction Tax to Reduce Liquidity on U.S. Markets? Terrible Idea

Kudos to this writer, nice article, and please keep it up.

Potential Financial-Transaction Tax

Excerpt from: www.greencompany.com/A...

Rally Congress Action Petition:
www.rallycongress.com/.../
Save traders' jobs: Do not enact a financial-transaction tax.
Traders, please join us by speaking out to defend your job and business from the government’s tax axe.

Kindly click the Rally Congress link above to read and sign our petition. While you are at our Rally Congress page, please also send this letter (or your own customized version) to your Congressman and distribute it to your social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn). You can offer your comments on that page too. Please help spread the word on trader message boards and in our trader community. We need as much support as possible to win here.
Rally Congress RSS/XML Feed:
www.rallycongress.com/.../

GreenTraderTax Blog:
Archived blog articles on the financial-transaction tax. Click here www.greencompany.com/b... to access the entire archives.

Nov 25 09 - Financial-transaction tax: Not dead globally
Nov 24 09 - Save traders' jobs: Do not enact a financial-transaction tax
Nov 20 09 - Financial-transaction tax update 2: Global consensus needed
Nov 19 09 - Financial-transaction tax update 1 (11/19)
Nov 18 09 - More thoughts on the financial-transaction tax (Nov. 17, 2008)
Nov 09 09 - Financial-transaction tax is dead on arrival globally, which is good news locally
Oct 21 09 - Financial-transaction tax remains a hot button issue
Sep 03 09 - AFL-CIO lends support to a dreaded financial-transaction tax
Aug 06 09 - Traders Association
May 14 09 - 2010 Obama Budget Tax Proposals: Some Clarifications
May 12 09 - New potential attack on 60/40 treatment for dealers
Mar 05 09 - SEC raising fees
Mar 04 09 - Rep. Peter DeFazio defends financial-transaction tax on CNBC
Feb 27 09 - Did Chairman Frank say the financial-transaction tax is on hold pending Wall Street payback of TARP funds?
Feb 19 09 - Financial-transaction Tax Reintroduced in House as H.R. 1068
Jan 14 09 - Potential Financial-Transaction Tax of 0.25% on proceeds and purchases (a large article including background research, including key legislative history).

Please join our Traders Association on facebook at www.facebook.com/group...

We need to all fight against this tax together and not give up. We can win.

Thanks for your support!

Robert A. Green, CPA
CEO GreenTraderTax Traders Association

A Transaction Tax to Reduce Liquidity on U.S. Markets? Terrible Idea

November 9, 2009

Financial-transaction tax is dead on arrival globally, which is good news locally

Many thanks are owed to U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. At the G20's summit in Scotland over the weekend, he personally fought off the left-leaning powers that be – UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde – who support this dreaded tax. The Brits got caught up in local politics. The left in the UK is on its way out and used this tax as a populist rant on banks and to demonize Tories and their constituents. (Click here for more.)

The G20 is embarking on cooperation and coordination, thanks to the election of President Obama promising global consensus. None of the major G20 money-center powers (New York/Chicago, London, Paris, Germany, Russia, Nordic region, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo) will enact a transaction-tax if the other countries aren't following suit. Most leaders from these areas are against this tax; no one can afford to lose financial business during this precarious recovery.

However, some leaders do support a tax of this nature. Last month, Brazil’s government passed a 2-percent tax on foreign purchases of equities and fixed-income securities. Perhaps Brazil’s strong industrial and commodity economy will support experimentation with this tax, but the Brazilian government may change its mind after the effects of the tax set in.

The G20 is trying to make progress in the area of financial reform so it can move on to climate change before the end of 2009. There is little time to make agreements and then back track. It decided to wait for final word from the IMF, and the IMF confirmed it doesn't support a financial transaction tax. Hence, it’s dead on arrival in my book. As I discussed in earlier articles, Europe's left-wing politicians are losing to the right; recent statements regarding this tax were part of their last gasp efforts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner played his cards very well. He deferred to his old employer, the IMF — the global financial overseer — and he knew the IMF shared his views on using a more narrow approach, such as a bank bailout fund insurance plan. Secretary Geithner didn’t have to say no to this tax in order to defend U.S. financial markets, and he didn't have to subside his own party's (and the President’s) populist rants against Wall Street. As I have predicted, the Democrats will rail against Wall Street, but they will not kill the U.S. golden goose — our financial markets and industries. Hopefully, this may be a turning point from populist campaign rants toward productive policies that are fair and balanced. In my opinion, President Obama is looking smarter for selecting Tim Geithner as his Treasury Secretary, based on Geithner's good experience with the IMF - the brains of the G20 going forward.

Yes, left-wing fringe elements and progressives in the U.S. Democratic party will still try to raise transaction-tax revenue proposals to "pay go" for new spending plans such as transportation, health care, and more. But, I continue to believe that leadership will keep shooting down this shotgun "kill-many-traders" tax, as they have been doing to Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and other similar plans. The left-wing progressives just don’t get it. They want to spend their way to recovery and fund the efforts by taxing small-business job creators. That shows their poor economic training.

I am writing an opinion piece on this tax for Active Trader magazine. I'd like to start my piece as follows: “Congratulations, you just hired yourself by becoming a trader. Too bad left-wing Democrats want to fire you.” It’s about small business jobs, jobs, and jobs! Traders hire themselves, and spend their days productively making a living for their families. A transaction tax will surely put close to a million traders out of business overnight. Most of these home-based and smaller hedge-fund traders lost their jobs before pursuing trading as a last resort business opportunity. Many have exhausted unemployment benefits. What safety net remains for out-of-work traders? Firing them in this populist rant against Wall Street is stupid and unfair. If you want to tax Wall Street, ask for a higher FDIC fee or a windfall profits tax if you have the guts to do so.

Much more to come soon in my opinion piece and this week’s conference call.