On Monday evening, France pledged that it would be “extremely firm” regarding the concessions requested by Belgium in the framework of the negotiation on a financial transactions tax. For health reasons, the Austrian finance minister, Hans Jörg Schelling, will be unable to attend the meeting this Tuesday 21 February, but it will still go ahead, according to the French finance minister, Michel Sapin.
“Exempting pension funds from the implementation of the FTT would make the system completely or almost completely pointless. There are pension funds in certain countries. In France, we have life assurance, which is subject to the FTT. Therefore, you can imagine that if pension funds were not subject to the FTT and then all pensions savings of the same kind would then have to be brought into line, you would end up with so many loopholes that it's worthless”, Sapin said (our translation). He went on to point out that “there are people who are able buy shares for pension income, so why should they be subject to the FTT and not the others?”
A document to be put to the ministers this Tuesday therefore asks the delegations whether an exemption to the tax should be permitted for pension funds. Should this exemption be an option for the participating states, or should it be compulsory? If it should be an option, would the participating states not applying this exemption be allowed to tax their shares (of a financial transaction)? The document goes on to ask which sectors should be covered by the exemption: pension funds only, or insurance as well? (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)