A financial transactions tax would cost more money to enforce than it would bring in.

Taxing consumption (GST) instead of income (PAYE) encourages saving and investing.

FTT discourages investing as you can't make transactions without being taxed.

FTT hurts growth more than GST.

The Alliance who, I didn't even realise they were still going, oh right they got 57 votes in the last election. Just what we need another tax that will require more public servants to monitor and audit. I still don't get why we have to put up with your dripple and a regular basis surely there's another tennis tournanment or insignificant sports event you can going and protest with your other 15 mates....

Darth Michael #1 Why, please explain.

I know a bit about Tobin tax.

The tax working group ... another case of Govs paying their friends large consultancy fees to tell them a radical version of what they want to do. Then when they do a mild version - eg 'only' 15% on GST - the Gov looks 'reasonable'. GST is a terrible, negative tax which harms the poor and local industry, has undue compliance costs, accounting, and other problems, and widens the rich/poor gap. That's what it is designed to do. It's part of International Banking's 'Neo-Liberal' agenda, which is designed to put countries into debt slavery and the 3 rd world, controlling economies and currencies from offshore. Just like us.....and the USA. Whoever controls the currency is 'God' over your economy ( In God we Trust ) and that's now done from offshore, usually via IMF protocol. NZ has largely been run by the IMF since 1975. The big Banks, eg represented by IMF, can control currency etc via National Debt and payments ( and the currency of repayment they dictate - usually the $US ) but they and other private speculators and fund managers can Attack most currencies ( can include cornering the market and selling it short ). Big privateer George Soros famously attacked the British Pound....successfully.

The solution is public banking that we actually control and essentially used to have ( with Aus, USA, Can ), and the Gov expands the money supply as needed, ideally by creating money for infrastructure . Then fix our exchange rate - every week - and built reciprocal trade deals with countries we can trust. That's not China. GST shouldn't rise but take care with a FTT.....and anything Gordon Brown proposes. If it's Top Heavy - hitting speculators ( like John Key ) and international transactions in money and shares, okay.... if we created our own currency. But don't tax trade in goods, except for tariffs.

"FTT is not a panacea but its benefits would include: reducing the artificially high value of our dollar; helping exporters and local producers; taxing the parasitic activity of the unproductive financial sector as well as enabling a dramatic reduction in the iniquitous GST."

The list of things John Minto knows nothing about is quite long. I'm wondering when he will get to the end of it.

"I'm waiting for a reporter to ask him where he thinks his millions actually originated!"

Possibly I can dispel a tiny bit of John's ignorance. A trader makes money by buying something that someone wants to sell at a higher price than anyone else will pay and then later selling it to someone who wants to buy at a lower price than anyone else is willing to sell for.

The money comes from making two people happier (and richer) than they would otherwise have been.

You can have anything that you want if you are willing to give enough other people what they want. That is how free markets work, John. Better than your socialist stand-over and shake-down tactics at gun-point, isn't it?

i wouldnt drop GST, but the idea of a FTT has merit and would broaden the tax base even further.

There may be some argument that this would create fiscal drag, but it would be an interesting debate none the less.

as i dont have anything more then opinion to base my position on, i will read the comments with interest.

I would like to know would a FTT be payable on: rates, mortgage, loan repayments, trust transfers, international transfers between accounts?

Ummm John currency speculation and other financial transactions entered in to for the express purpose of making a short term gain are already taxable in NZ....

Darth Michael #1 So if banks refuse to obey the law voluntarily we should change the law? Immediate confiscation of all assets as a punishment should be enough of an incentive for them to stop behaving like criminals. Or are you soft on criminals aswell as bankers?