5 November 2012
TAKEN FROM: www.robinhoodtax.org.uk
WHAT CAN THE ROBIN HOOD TAX ACHIEVE?
The financial crisis has driven millions of people into poverty and put many more at risk as the world's poorest countries scramble to fill huge budget holes with dwindling help from richer nations. Poor people in the UK are also being hit hardest by cuts. Revenue from a Robin Hood Tax could go a long way to helping make the world a fairer place.
In the UK:
£110,000 saves 350 libraries at risk of closure £680m reinstates Educational Maintenance Allowances £2 billion avoids housing benefit cuts £4 billion halves child poverty £5 billion insulates every home
Around the world:
£4 billion puts every child on earth in primary school £5 billion pays for free health care for 200,000 people £7 billion means Haiti can fully adapt to the threat of flooding
WHY TAX THE FINANCIAL SECTOR?
Because it's responsible for a big part of the mess we're in.
Because it has an obligation to all of us to help clear it up.
Because it is the most profitable industry on earth, 26 times more profitable than the average business.
Because it is under taxed - so it can afford to do so. A tiny tax on the financial sector could generate £20 billion annually in the UK alone. That's enough to protect schools and hospitals. Enough to stop massive cuts across the public sector. Enough to transform lives around the world – and to deal with the new climate challenges our world is facing.
Because so far, the cost of the financial crisis to the UK economy, as calculated by the International Monetary Fund, is that UK government debt will be 40% higher. That 40% equates to £737 million pounds, or £28,000 pounds for every taxpayer in the country. Having to pay back that debt means cuts in vital services on which millions of people around the country rely.
Because according to the Bank of England, the fact that the government will not let the big banks go bust means that they effectively get a subsidy of £100 billion pounds from the UK tax payer each year. But the banks have already started to report record profits and pay themselves enormous bonuses once again. The 2010 bonus pot for the UK is 6 billion pounds, enough to pay the salaries of 340,000 nurses in the UK, or provide free healthcare for 250 million people in developing countries.
Because the IMF and many other financial commentators believe that the financial sector is under taxed, and has grown to become dangerously large and destabilising for the global economy, as we saw when the crisis hit in 2008. FSA Chairman Lord Turner has described a portion of the financial sector as ‘socially useless’.
Because it's time for the financial sector to make a greater contribution to the society it serves.
Robin Hood Tax • Opuss № I