The Labour Party has relaunched the proposal, first floated in its election manifesto, to expand stamp duty into a broader financial transaction tax. The proposed tax would be applicable to all debt and equity security trades. The stated objectives of the tax, as set out in a paper published earlier this year by Professor Avinash Persaud, are to:
raise an additional £4.7bn of annual tax revenue;
reduce systemic risk, particularly that posed by high frequency trading;
deter ‘excessive churning’ of investments; and
increase transparency in markets.
Clifford Chance has issued a briefing on Labour’s announcement, saying it would be ‘complacent in the present political environment to assume that such a tax cannot be introduced’.
Dan Neidle, tax partner at Clifford Chance, commented that ‘stamp duty is a pretty good tax’, which ‘raises significant sums with minimal impact on investors or business’. And stamp duty, he added, ‘is almost impossible to avoid – you can’t escape it by leaving the UK’.
‘The cost will be borne by pension funds, unit trusts and other investors. They’ll suffer a greatly increased tax on UK shares – up from 0.5% to 1.3% or more. Foreign shares will be subject to tax for the first time.’
The inevitable consequence of this ‘Robin Hood tax’, Neidle said, ‘will be a flight from the UK, with obvious consequences for jobs and UK tax revenues’.
The Labour Party has relaunched the proposal, first floated in its election manifesto, to expand stamp duty into a broader financial transaction tax. The proposed tax would be applicable to all debt and equity security trades. The stated objectives of the tax, as set out in a paper published earlier this year by Professor Avinash Persaud, are to:
raise an additional £4.7bn of annual tax revenue;
reduce systemic risk, particularly that posed by high frequency trading;
deter ‘excessive churning’ of investments; and
increase transparency in markets.
Clifford Chance has issued a briefing on Labour’s announcement, saying it would be ‘complacent in the present political environment to assume that such a tax cannot be introduced’.
Dan Neidle, tax partner at Clifford Chance, commented that ‘stamp duty is a pretty good tax’, which ‘raises significant sums with minimal impact on investors or business’. And stamp duty, he added, ‘is almost impossible to avoid – you can’t escape it by leaving the UK’.
‘The cost will be borne by pension funds, unit trusts and other investors. They’ll suffer a greatly increased tax on UK shares – up from 0.5% to 1.3% or more. Foreign shares will be subject to tax for the first time.’
The inevitable consequence of this ‘Robin Hood tax’, Neidle said, ‘will be a flight from the UK, with obvious consequences for jobs and UK tax revenues’.
