Bernie Sanders has a way to raise $2 trillion -- tax Wall Street trading

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

Under the measure, any stocks traded would be taxed at a rate of 0.5%, bonds at 0.1% and derivatives at 0.005%. So selling $1,000 of stock would incur a tax of $5. Such a tax could conservatively raise tens of billions of dollars per year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated the potential revenue at $776 billion over a decade. A 2017 study by the University of Massachusetts concluded a so-called financial transactions tax could yield a far bigger bounty -- $2.4 trillion over 10 years.

"While the top 23 banks in America received over $20 billion in tax breaks last year as a result of the Trump tax plan, hundreds of thousands of young people are unable to go to college because they can't afford it, 34 million Americans have no health insurance, one out of five Americans can't afford to buy the medicine prescribed by their doctors, over 40 million Americans are living in poverty," Sanders said in introducing the legislation.

(snip)

Economists from Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have made the case for such a tax. The finance industry opposes it, arguing that it would hurt average investors who would have to pay more to invest or have to make fewer trades.

(snip)

Supporters of a Wall Street tax point to this reduction in speculation as a benefit. It's "skimming the fat off of a sector of the economy that can afford to pay it," the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote during the Great Recession. A Forbes contributor likened it to a cigarette tax: "It would pick up some revenue while discouraging dangerous activity," she wrote.

(snip)


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-taxing-wall-street-trades-will-raise-2-trillion/

[PatrickforO]

1. Undeniably one of Bernie's best ideas. The problem on Wall Street

is the arbitrage 'bots. They wait for the price of shares to fluctuate a fraction of a cent and then trade, over and over and over, pocketing the profits from large volume trades.

This tax would get some money back from the Wall Street billionaires.

I have a really good friend, Dan, who is fond of saying we have plenty of money to take care of everyone on the earth - it is merely in too few hands.

[oldsoftie]

3. I certainly think HFTs should be taxed. It would reduce the incentive to attempt manipulation.

The added costs of thousands of trades in a short period of time may alter their behavior. Or just make HFTing illegal.
I also think short selling of low volume stocks should be made illegal; too easy to manipulate the price of a thinly traded stock.

[George II]

9. "Progressive Tax Takes Aim at Wall Street Transactions, Financial Crashes"

March 05, 2019

Democrats on Tuesday proposed a tax on Wall Street transactions which could stop another financial crash and bring in $777 billion over the next decade.

"The Wall Street Tax Act would tax the sale of stocks, bonds, and derivatives at 0.1 percent," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hi.), who introduced the bill (pdf) with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) as lead co-sponsor.

"A stock trade of $1,000 would incur a tax of just one dollar," Schatz added.

The bill was also cosponsored in the Senate by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Sen. Jeff Merkeley (D-Ore.), who is not.

The House version of the bill was introduced by U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) with the support of Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/05/progressive-tax-takes-aim-wall-street-transactions-financial-crashes

[Blue_true]

22. Senator Warren proposed taxing trading years ago.

It was one of Hillary Clinton's ideas on how to get more money that was being diverted into damaging speculation.

[brush]

30. Others have proposed similar penny-a-trade plans or even fractions of a penny.

It's not Sanders' exclusive idea. What's new is he finally proposed a way to pay for his proposals.

[George II]

34. One of HIS best ideas? It was already introduced in the Senate back in March...

He's a Senator, why didn't he simply co-sponsor Van Hollen's bill?

Progressive Tax Takes Aim at Wall Street Transactions, Financial Crashes

March 05, 2019

Democrats on Tuesday proposed a tax on Wall Street transactions which could stop another financial crash and bring in $777 billion over the next decade.

"The Wall Street Tax Act would tax the sale of stocks, bonds, and derivatives at 0.1 percent," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hi.), who introduced the bill with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) as lead co-sponsor.

"A stock trade of $1,000 would incur a tax of just one dollar," Schatz added.

The bill was also cosponsored in the Senate by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Sen. Jeff Merkeley (D-Ore.), who is not.

The House version of the bill was introduced by U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) with the support of Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/05/progressive-tax-takes-aim-wall-street-transactions-financial-crashes

[Celerity]

39. whilst that is a good, albeit very small, start, those revenue numbers are a drop in the bucket

0.1% rate generates only 77.7 billion USD a year versus a 5 trillion dollar Federal budget, that 77.7 bn USD is around only 1.55% of outlays.

The TEN year total of 777 billion USD is LESS THAN HALF of what we now spend on the cumulative war/security/clandestine ops state in ONE year.

A full 1% Tobin tax, with a 1 million USD (in total volume) per annum exemption (so smaller investors do not get lit up) is far more efficacious, and will also be a far better deterrent to help really put a crimp into the rapacious, systemically manipulative high frequency trading.

A Wall Street sales tax with teeth, one that at least starts to claw back the trillions skimmed off by an utterly corrupted, regulatory-captured, rigged-casino style models of banker systemic control.

We also should re-institute Glass-Steagall (repealed by the horrid Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999) and once again outlaw most all the forms of derivatives that the horrific Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 re-legalised (after they had been banned since the 1930's). Those last two Acts (bi-partisan) were amongst the most bedrock foundational causes that led directly to the 2007-2010 global financial crisis.

[oldsoftie]

2. "over 10 years". Always left out of headlines. Which means its STILL nowhere near whats needed.

Assuming the figures are even correct, which they are notorious for over estimating revenue & under estimating costs.
But it IS a piece of a big puzzle. The thing is, no one will ever recommend a bigger piece that Europe uses; the sales tax.

[George II]

13. Don't know where those numbers came from, but as you point out it's really only $240B.....

...per year.

Back in March a similar tax was introduced by Senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen at a higher rate that would bring in $777 Billion over ten years.

$2 Trillion makes a good headline, but probably isn't accurate.

[Nuggets]

15. +1

[lapucelle]

4. Activists around the world (including in the U.S.) have been working for this for over a decade.

Appropriation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Here's a short PSA starring Ben Kingsley that was made in 2010.

https://www.robinhoodtax.org/#

https://www.robinhoodtax.org/endorsing-organizations/#

https://www.robinhoodtax.org/around-the-world/

[calguy]

5. I'm sorry, but won't fly

As a full time stock trader I probably buy and sell $10,000 to $30,000 on any given day trading. And I'm a very small time trader. Many days I don't realky make that much on those trades, other days I do. I'm not willing to shell out $50 - $150 a DAY to pay for Bernie's pie in the sky projects.

[Blue_true]

23. Instead of trading, why don't you do venture capital?

$10,000 plus per day trading is not minor, even for a personal account. Maybe I just have an issue with trading around money for "financial instruments???" instead of investing in long term innovation and plants and equipment.

[calguy]

36. $10,000 IS very minor for a day trader

I usually trade 1000 shares at a time. Let's say I trade a $15 stock. That's $15,000, which makes my obligation to Bernie's tax $75.00. What if I only get a 15 cent move on the trade for a $150 profit. My broker commission is $10 plus $75 to Bernie and my $150 profit has shrunk to $65. What if the trade goes against me and I lose $100. Now, thanks to Bernie, my $110 loss is now $185. Imagine doing this five to ten times a day, every day. If you do the math it's easy to see how Bernie could take tens of thousands of dollars out my pocket every year. Can you see why this proposal is ridiculous?

[Blue_true]

43. Bernie completely overstepped.

He has a tendency to do that. The proposal Hillary made in 2016 would result in you paying $15 on the$15,000 trade. I see your point on day trade action, but if you lose money over a month, six months or a year, maybe you should try something else with your money. I think Hillary's proposal would not have hurt you, if your survival margins are that thin, seems to me you should look to put your money elsewhere.

One of the things that I like about modern technology is that it is possible to launch what can become a major business with very little upfront. If you need services, for example Branding and Marketing, there are plenty of shops online that work on contract, you just have to know which one to pick. Another idea is you can set up an investment club where each person has to contract to provide a certain amount of cash each month to enter. You can do buy and hold trades like Warren Buffett if the capital base that you have to work with is large enough. You do traditional asset evaluations, buy assets and sell them once they move a certain amount in say 3-4 months. A $3 move on a $27 stock during such a situation yields something like 40% annum. Just some ideas, I am a business person, not an asset trader, so services like Branding and Marketing is what I know more about finding and using when I need to use such services.

Since you seem to trade as your livelihood, you should be able to deduct loses at tax time. I assume that you do quarterly filings since that makes sense for self employed with pretty significant cash changing hands over 3 months.

The issue that I have with Senator Sanders and have long had is that he takes ideas that have been around among democrats for a while, spin them way up to have them sound wonderful to the uninformed, then can't provide ideas about how he would implement those ideas if he was elected President. To me, his lack of details is disqualifying.

[marylandblue]

35. Sorry, but there aren't enough individual day traders to stop this tax.

If it doesn't fly, it will be because the big banks stopped it.

[calguy]

37. You are right. There aren't enough day traders.

but the entire trading community, composed of big, small, and medium sized traders all over the world are enough to stop this stupid proposal. Think about a retired person who has to fork over hundreds of dollars to Bernie every time a withdrawal is taken from a retirement account. Or if one wanted to reallocate the funds in a portfolio, every time, money has to be given to Bernie.
I'm certain you have no idea the negative impact this joke of a proposal would have on the average person as well as the large banks and institutions.
Stupid shit like this is but one of the many reasons Bernie has no chance to even come close to the nomination.

[marylandblue]

40. Well the money doesn't go straight to Bernie, you just say that for emotional reasons.

As others have pointed out, he's not the only to think of this.

I can imagine a number of ways to minimize the impact on retirees or small investors.

I can also think of reasons that increasing transaction costs would promote market stability and more efficient investment. But this is anathema to economists, which makes me a heretic.

[Uncle Joe]

41. I agree on all counts marylandblue

(snip)

For the relatively few middle-class investors who might get dinged, the Sanders bill has a carve-out. Any taxpayer earning less than $50,000 whose investment adviser passes on the cost of the trading tax could get the full amount back as a tax credit.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-taxing-wall-street-trades-will-raise-2-trillion/

[calguy]

42. It's really kind of ymoot point

Bernie is not going to win the nomination.

[Blue_true]

44. The retirement account thing.

When a retiree moves assets from one find to another, they would get hit with a transaction fee only when a trade is done. And even then they may only see a small increase in the service fee from the Fund. So I think the retirement account thing is a non issue.

[NYMinute]

6. This will eat into people's 401K plans big time

and will never fly.

It is a hidden tax on people.

Honest politicians would just propose a straight income tax increase rather than resort to a deceptive income tax on the middle class.

[Blue_true]

24. Hillary Clinton proposed something like a 0.001% tax

Last edited Fri May 24, 2019, 06:55 PM - Edit history (1)

on trades. For typical trades that may have worked out to an extra $0.25 for the entire transaction, not really a burdensome addition. The issue that I have with Senator Sanders and his supporters is they act like this is new. Senator Warren, Hillary Clinton and others have been advocates for that for years.

[George II]

7. Not his idea:

Progressive Tax Takes Aim at Wall Street Transactions, Financial Crashes

March 05, 2019

Democrats on Tuesday proposed a tax on Wall Street transactions which could stop another financial crash and bring in $777 billion over the next decade.

"The Wall Street Tax Act would tax the sale of stocks, bonds, and derivatives at 0.1 percent," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hi.), who introduced the bill (pdf) with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) as lead co-sponsor.

"A stock trade of $1,000 would incur a tax of just one dollar," Schatz added.

The bill was also cosponsored in the Senate by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Sen. Jeff Merkeley (D-Ore.), who is not.

The House version of the bill was introduced by U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) with the support of Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/05/progressive-tax-takes-aim-wall-street-transactions-financial-crashes

[Blue_true]

25. But Senator Sanders proposed it and jacked up the numbers.

So now it is the new sliced bread. That stuff gets kind of old. Hillary Clinton proposed such a tax on trades of stocks AND commodities in 2016. It was a small tax that would not alter the price of the transaction, but would raise money for financial regulation, for clean energy and to fight climate change.

[mopinko]

8. he was on w ali velshi the other day talking about this.

i was so disappointed. all he did was give his usual stump speech, and duck questions. this is ali's bailiwick. he would have impressed me if he had been able to have an intelligent conversation.

one question he ducked- these days traders can go anywhere w/o getting out of their chairs. what seems like a small amount to some comes out to serious coin when this is what you do for a living. bernie didnt even acknowledge the question. i guess he doesnt know that a lot of people work at exchanges that arent traders.

apparently this is being discussed in the eu. the only way to avoid emptying out exchanges here is to do it as close to worldwide as possible.
and no, wall street is not going to pick up and move. but chicago, atlanta, kansas city, san fran, whole lot of cities have exchanges that can easily go belly up over that. and those are some of the best jobs in town.

it's not simple, it's simplistic. bernie has a gift for that.

[George II]

10. Maybe he didn't want to get too deeply into it because it was already introduced back in March....

....by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hi.), with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) as lead co-sponsor.

[crazytown]

11. He didn't go into it because he's lazy

He learns his stump speech and interview responses by rote.

[Nuggets]

16. 👍🏼

[mopinko]

18. that's where he lost me in '16.

always the same answer. always the same damn speech.
makes me wonder if that is really how his brain works.

[brush]

31. That's true. He seems to acknowledge an interviewer's question...

preliminarily, then launches into his stump speech snippets that everyone has heard for years. That's what got him booed at the Women of Color Forum a few weeks back.

Maybe it's a "thinking on your feet" problem.

[crazytown]

32. He's not the same guy as interviewed on 'Brunch with Bernie'

whether by design or necessity. He talks about hard work remembering Ted Kennedy.

[Kahuna7]

46. Yep. nt

[mopinko]

17. he was asked about schatz bill. his answer-

argle bargle wa wa dont want to go into that argle.

[George II]

19. ..

[JI7]

28. he doesn't have much beyond the usual slogans from his stump speech. he is unable to answer

when asked how things would or even should be done. this happened in 2016 also and it says a lot that he isn't prepared to answer.

we have seen other candidates like Beto and Pete get criticism for not having policies but they deal with those things and work on it and have put out policies .

[mopinko]

33. i dont see him picking up any new voters.

his lack of effectiveness as a senator is on full display when there is another bill trying to do the same thing, and he is not on board.

and he doesnt have a clear answer for the biggest and most obvious problem w the bill.
i have had a birds-eye view of the computerization of the financial markets. the risk of them drying up and blowing away is real. and the guy who claims to be for workers has no idea that there are whole support systems behind the dudes on the floor.
those are good jobs. really good jobs, some of them. some of the best in town in all the other cities that arent nyc.

his numbers arent even rational. they are way too big, compared to the couple of countries that do have that tax.
if those numbers showed up in the arbitrage programs, it would cause a huge crash.
if they show up on the tax bills across america, hong kong will be the center of the financial universe over night.
over.fucking.night.

and nobody has to get out of their chairs except the tech guys who would have to deal w the chaos.

no, i dont want a guy who doesnt even understand the real ramifications of his pet idea.

[Fresh_Start]

12. HRC suggested it in 2016 but only on high volume trading

so it wouldn't harm small investors.

[Blue_true]

26. I have pointed that out also. Her plan would have worked out adding a tiny amount

to the trade and she would have covered commodities trading and trading of derivatives, enormous trading areas. Senator Warren has proposed such taxes regularly for years, her plan would also not harm the basic transactions but raise money for regulation.

One big issue that I have with Senator Sanders' supporters is that when he announces a "new" idea, they act like NO ONE proposed it before.

[still_one]

29. Exactly

[Hoyt]

14. Whether it's the lower Govt estimate of $78 Billion a year, or MIT's $200 Billion, it doesn't come

close to covering the annual Deficit, much less contributing to the Debt or paying for healthcare, jobs, infrastruture, bolstering Social Security and Medicare, etc.

Such tax proposals are a start. Every Democratic candidate has a few anemic proposals that sound good and put the burden on someone else. But, at some point, some candidate is going to have to be honest with Americans -- to cover our past excesses and do the things we know we need, its' going to cost almost everyone. The wealthy can bear a bigger share; but, all but the poorest are going to have to kick in too. Of course, that candidate won't get very far because no one wants to hear it.

[Blue_true]

27. You make a good point.

If we get Medicare for All for example, everyone using the system will need to be responsible users to keep costs down. No more drinking alcohol until the liver is ruined or eating like a pig and not doing one second of exercise Those are some of the unpleasant realities that politicians don't talk about.

[George II]

20. ..

[Blue_true]

21. Hillary Clinton proposed that in 2016. Senator Warren has long been an advocate for that.

It is not new and special because Senatir Sanders is now behind it.

[NurseJackie]

38. This isn't Bernie's idea.

[Honeycombe8]

45. Heck no.

A lot of people have 401ks with mutual funds, most of which trade stocks. And the employees trade stocks in their accounts, too.

Many middle class people trade stocks both in and out of retirement accounts.

He has a weak carve-out for the middle class, but it doesn't do the trick.

It also would discourage trading. The article says that Britain does this. Yeah....and that's why Americans steer clear of British stocks. It would have a negative impact on the stock market.

No matter how you slice it, those taxes would filter down to anyone who owns stocks either directly or indirectly. Besides, Congress won't pass it.

[Persondem]

47. How about we just cancel the last 3 rounds of tax cuts for rich people and corporations?

Or is that too simple?