Tobin tax/WTO

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

Tuesday November 06 08:39 AM EST

WTO to Hear Calls for 'Robin Hood' Tax
By Sebastian Naidoo, OneWorld UK
Campaigners are stepping up calls for a "Robin Hood" tax on the global
currency trade ahead of a high-level summit of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) in the Gulf state of Qatar later this week.


A "small and simple" levy on the world's currency market could wipe
out the worst of global poverty, according to a report released Monday
by anti-poverty charity War on Want and leading alternative think-tank
the New Economics Foundation.

"A 'Robin Hood' tax on currency transactions would be an automatic and
politically painless way to help pay for international targets on
sustainable development," said the head of the foundation's global
economy program, Andrew Simms. "The money markets can easily afford it
and technology can deliver it," he said.

A tax on the estimated US$1.8 trillion channeled daily through the
international currency markets could raise as much as US$300 billion
each year if set within the proposed range of between 10 and 25 cents
per US$100 traded.

The system--devised in 1978 by Nobel laureate and Yale economist James
Tobin--would help quell the highly volatile markets which can plunge
currencies into deep troughs.

Critics of the tax say it would strengthen the dominance of the United
States dollar and require complex and costly multilateral as well as
national controls.

The report--which proposes setting up a Global Development Commission
to oversee collection and distribution of the tax--is released amid
signs of a new wave of interest in the tax at government level.

Earlier this year, France and Germany gave fresh impetus to the Tobin
Tax "movement", coordinated largely by the France-based organization
ATTAC, by pushing for the European Union (E.U.) to take up the issue.

At a meeting of the E.U.'s Economic and Financial Committee last month
ministers from across the regional bloc called on the E.U.'s executive
arm to look into the pros and cons of the Tobin Tax. The European
Commission is due to report on its findings next February.

Over 700 parliamentarians from around the world have signed up to a
petition for the tax and aim to put pressure on the U.S. Congress to
debate the issue.

Campaigners will be raising the issue at the WTO's ministerial meeting
which opens in Doha Friday, saying that such a tax would not only help
put United Nations development targets back on track, it would also
help keep a check on the activities of transnational corporations.

The tax is one of the central demands of a pan-European trade lobby
network in Doha this week which says in a statement, "part of the
response to September 11th should be to reform the global economic
system which leaves millions of people in poverty."