A poor showing for the financial transactions tax (FTT) French-style. The French Court of Auditors has found that the tax has not met any of its objectives.
For instance, although the FTT aimed to make the financial sector put its hands in its pockets, the French daily newspaper Les Echos reports that the tax is ultimately paid for by the end investor. Financial service providers are simply passing the tax on in the fees they charge their customers, the financial daily explains. Taxing high-frequency trading has also yielded little. The tax has failed to wipe out the harmful operations it was targeting and has simply moved them to a different country, the Court states. Finally, revenue is down (from €1.06 billion in 2015 to €947 million in 2016) and the process of collecting the tax is not sufficiently transparent.
The European Commissioner for Taxation, Pierre Moscovici of France, sees this as no reason to become disillusioned with the tax, but as “a further incentive to make swift progress at European level, in order to become efficient and remain competitive”, he tweeted (our translation). (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)