Have you heard about the Robin Hood Tax?
Here at Red Hot, we’re pretty excited about it. The tax is based on the well-known story of Robin Hood, the thief with the heart of gold who took from the rich and gave to the poor. For the Robin Hood Tax, also called the financial transaction tax, the idea stays the same – skimming a little bit off the top of every financial transaction (like buying and selling of stocks, mutual funds, and derivatives) so that people in need no longer have to suffer. The tax would be small, only about 0.05%, but even that little bit would quickly snowball into billions and billions of dollars that can be used both nationally and internationally. And don’t be alarmed, it wouldn’t be a tax on individual citizens, only the financial sector, which can certainly afford to bankroll better healthcare, clean water, food, and all kinds of other benefits for the people who truly need them.
It is undetermined whether the tax will be implemented on a regional, national, or global stage, but given the immense outpouring of support from around the world, it’s highly possible that the funds generated from the tax would be available to anyone and everyone in need.
The tax is supported by some of the most prominent names in economics. Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have spoken in favor of it, and so has Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Many celebrities have also come on board, including Bill Nighy, Joe Dempsie, and Emma Thompson.
In the coming weeks, expect to see this little tax in the news a lot – the G20 Summit is later this month, and NGOs around the world are gearing up to make sure that the Robin Hood Tax will be an item of discussion. Be sure to follow the Red Hot twitter and ‘like’ the Red Hot facebook page to stay updated!
Actually, the Robin Hood Tax *DOES* tax individuals. It also taxes the pension funds that people are depending on for their later years.
It always confuses me why people say it doesn’t hit individuals when it does. Once people look into it more, their support wanes.
That’s the whole problem with this tax.
If you want to get more money out of financial institutions, just tax them more directly. It’s that easy.