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October 8, 2015
The Financial Transaction Tax
An Old Solution to a New Problem
www.citizen.org
Acknowledgments
This report was written by Taylor Lincoln, research director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch
division, and edited by Congress Watch Deputy Director Susan Harley.
About Public Citizen
Public Citizen is a national non-profit organization with more than 400,000 members and
supporters. We represent consumer interests through lobbying, litigation, administrative advocacy,
research, and public education on a broad range of issues including consumer rights in the
marketplace, product safety, financial regulation, worker safety, safe and affordable health care,
campaign finance reform and government ethics, fair trade, climate change, and corporate and
government accountability.
Public Citizen’s Congress Watch
215 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
P: 202-454-5139
F: 202-547-7392
http://www.citizen.org
© 2015 Public Citizen. All rights reserved
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 3
roposals to tax financial transactions, such as sales of stocks, have commanded
attention in recent years, especially since the financial crisis of 2008.
These proposals typically call for a tax on stock sales that is so small that ordinary investors
would hardly notice it but nevertheless raises substantial revenue, largely from high-
volume traders.1 Aside from taxing sales of stock, financial transaction tax proposals also
call in varying ways for taxing transactions in bonds, derivatives and other financial
products.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) (now retired) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) proposed
legislation in 2013 and in earlier sessions of Congress that would have taxed stock
transactions at 0.03 percent (3 cents on every $100).2 The Harkin-DeFazio proposal would
have generated $352 billion over 10 years, according to analysis that the Joint Committee
on Taxation furnished to Harkin and DeFazio in 2011.3
Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Rep. Keith
Ellison (D-Minn.) favor a significantly larger financial transaction tax of 0.5 percent, or 50
cents on every $100, for stock trades. Their proposals also call for taxes of 0.1 percent for
bond trades, and 0.005 for derivative trades.4
Former President George H.W. Bush (R) and former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-
Kan.) supported versions of financial transaction taxes in the early-1990s.5 Richard
Darman, director of the Office of Management of Budget under the first President Bush and
Bush I Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady proposed a financial transaction tax of 0.5
percent on stocks and bonds.6
A proposal has been pending since 2014 in the European Union to implement a financial
transaction tax, tentatively set at 0.1 percent on sales of stock and at a lower rate for
1 TAYLOR LINCOLN, PUBLIC CITIZEN, A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ADDED COSTS FROM A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION
TAX WOULD BE MINUSCULE COMPARED TO FEES INVESTORS ALREADY PAY (March 12, 2014),
http://bit.ly/1izXoH9. Report compares existing transaction costs to prospective additional costs
posed by a 0.03 percent FTT.
2 S.410 – Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Act (introduced Feb. 28, 2013),
http://1.usa.gov/1guzFGk.
3 Office of Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore), Press Release, Memo: Joint Tax Committee Finds Harkin,
DeFazio Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Generates More Than $350 Billion
(Nov. 9, 2011), http://1.usa.gov/KgULbb.
4 Alan K. Ota, Sanders Presses for Vote on Financial Transaction Tax, ROLL CALL (June 24, 2015),
http://bit.ly/1guzZF0 and H.R.1579 - Inclusive Prosperity Act of 2013 (introduced April 16, 2013),
http://1.usa.gov/1NG8erI.
5 See, e.g., MARK P. KEIGHTLEY, A SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAX: FINANCIAL MARKETS AND REVENUE EFFECTS,
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (June 12, 2012), http://bit.ly/1Lc4bgd and PROPOSED TRANSACTION
TAX DOESN’T ‘MAKE SENSE,’ AMEX CHAIRMAN SAYS, SECURITIES WEEK (June 11, 1990) and William G. Laffer
III, The Worst Tax Hike (Executive Memorandum #278 on Taxes), HERITAGE FOUNDATION (Aug. 9,
1990), http://herit.ag/1L2pWjt.
6 Scott W. MacCormack, A Critique of the Reemerging Securities Transfer Excise Tax, 44 THE TAX
LAWYER 927-941 (Spring 1991), http://bit.ly/1FQ6FVH.
P
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 4
transactions in financial derivatives.7 At present, 11 of the 28 EU countries are negotiating
an agreement through which they would implement an FTT. The participating countries
account for about 90 percent of the European Union’s aggregate GDP.8 They are negotiating
under the auspices of the European Union’s “enhanced cooperation” permissions, which
allow a subset of the EU’s members to enter into treaties.9
European Union Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said in September 2015 that
the participating countries were closing in on a deal. “Today, we made important, if not
decisive, progress.” Moscovici said “This deal is within reach.”10
Proponents of such taxes typically envision them as serving both as sources of revenue and
as dampeners on casino-style trading activities. The relatively new phenomenon of high-
frequency trading, in which stocks are bought and sold in millisecond intervals, has altered
the way markets work and presented an array of risks and injustices. High-speed traders
deploy computers that are programed to buy or sell stocks based on algorithms. Some have
estimated that high-frequency trading accounts for up to 60 percent of all stock trades.11
The strategies used by high-frequency traders are anathema to the traditional
understanding of investment, which is the purchase of goods or assets in the hope that they
will generate revenue or appreciate in value in the future.12 Most people would likely agree
that a person would need to retain an asset for longer than a split second for it to count as a
legitimate investment.13
Certain aspects of high-frequency trading strategies are simply unfair. High-frequency
trades are often made on the basis of inside information purchased from markets or
discerned by deceptive means on what stocks other investors are attempting to buy or sell.
The computer-traders are then able to exploit that information.14
7 Capital Markets Union Another Obstacle for FTT, EURACTIV.COM (Sept. 4, 2015),
http://bit.ly/1KoUxX9.
8 Press release, European Parliament News, Eleven EU Countries Get Parliament's All Clear for a
Financial Transaction Tax (Dec. 12, 2012), http://bit.ly/1LrRMK0. The participating countries are
Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
9 Press release, European Commission, Financial Transaction Tax Under Enhanced Cooperation:
Commission Sets Out the Details (Feb. 14, 2013), http://bit.ly/1KqZeCZ.
10 EU Deal on Financial Transactions Tax ‘Within Reach’: Moscovici, REUTERS (Sept. 12, 2015),
http://reut.rs/1ib0JLP.
11 See, e.g., Tom Polansek, High-Frequency Trading Does Not Raise Futures Volatility –Study, REUTERS
(Aug. 27, 2013) http://reut.rs/1luzSXF; Matthew Philips, How the Robots Lost: High-Frequency
Trading’s Rise and Fall, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK (June 6, 2013), http://buswk.co/1ciOiDs.; Charles
Duhigg, Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds, THE NEW YORK TIMES (July 23, 2009),
http://nyti.ms/1koMVt4; Kambiz Foroohar, Trading Pennies Into $7 Billion Drives High-Frequency’s
Cowboys, BLOOMBERG NEWS (Oct. 6, 2010), http://bloom.bg/1ftPMlx.
12 See, e.g., Definition of Investment, INVESTOPEDIA, http://bit.ly/1QkDxpJ.
13 High-Frequency Traders Need a Speed Limit, BLOOMBERG (Jan. 25, 2015), http://bv.ms/1UYLLdL.
14 Charles Duhigg, Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds, THE NEW YORK TIMES (July 23, 2009),
http://nyti.ms/1koMVt4
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 5
For instance, if a high-frequency trading computer is aware of a mutual fund attempting to
purchase a large block of a certain stock (which would almost inevitably drive that stock’s
price up marginally), the high-frequency trader can profit by entering an instantaneous
order or, even more lucrative, a split second ahead of the other trade. High-frequency
traders gain added advantages by locating their operations close to markets’ physical
locations and implementing other technology to ensure that their orders are received ahead
of others, even if only by a millionth of a second.15
Aside from being unfair in certain ways, high-frequency trading may also pose a risk of
destabilizing markets and putting ordinary investors’ funds in jeopardy. On May 6, 2010,
the stock market lost 1,000 points in just a few minutes in an episode known as the “flash
crash.” Regulators subsequently blamed high-frequency trading for exacerbating the
volatility. One explanation was that the market had become so dependent on high-
frequency traders that a sudden withdrawal of their trading activity (perhaps due to some
signal detected by algorithm) could create a false sense of scarcity of demand for stocks,
causing prices to plummet.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission
wrote in analysis of the flash crash: “While the withdrawal of a single participant may not
significantly impact the entire market, a liquidity crisis can develop if many market
participants withdraw at the same time. This, in turn, can lead to the breakdown of a fair
and orderly price-discovery process.”16 Liquidity refers to the ease with which an asset can
be bought or sold without significant change to its price.
Some critics have forecast harmful effects on the market if a tax were enacted. But the costs
that would be imposed by even the boldest proposals would be less than transaction costs
that existed a couple of decades ago. “Transaction costs have indeed fallen dramatically
across financial markets over the past 35 years due to advances in information technology,
deregulation, and product innovation,” International Monetary Fund economist Thornton
Matheson wrote in 2011. For example, bid/ask spreads, which refer to the difference in the
price to sell a stock or purchase a stock, have fallen from greater than 1 percent to 0.1
percent.17
The transaction costs that do remain – including diminished bid/ask spreads, commissions
and overhead fees charged by mutual funds – dwarf the fees that investors would pay to
15 Id. and High-Frequency Traders Need a Speed Limit, BLOOMBERG (Jan. 25, 2015),
http://bv.ms/1UYLLdL.
16 Findings Regarding The Market Events of May 6, 2010, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION AND
COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION (Sept. 10, 2010), http://1.usa.gov/1YgGopm .
17 Thornton Matheson, Taxing Financial Transactions: Issues and Evidence, IMF Working Paper,
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (2011), http://bit.ly/1KDCGvK.
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 6
comply with a modest financial transaction tax, as Public Citizen illustrated in a 2014
report.18
A truly minuscule financial transaction tax dating to the 1930s provides funds to operate
the Securities and Exchange Commission. But that tax, which currently stands at 0.00184
percent (less than 2 cents for every thousand dollars traded), is just a fraction of even the
low end of new proposals for transaction taxes.19 That tax was forecast to raise $886 million
in 2015.20
Political observers treat as novel certain recent proposals in the United States for a more
significant financial transaction tax. Little attention has been paid to the fact that the United
States had a financial transaction tax in place from 1914 to 1965. In its later years, the tax
was similar in some respects to that proposed by Harkin and DeFazio.
The rates of the tax varied from 0.02 to 0.06 percent. For most of the time, the tax was
levied on the “par value” of a stock, which is the listed value on stock certificates and is
usually below market value. Transfers of bonds, as well as new issues of stocks and bonds
also were taxed at varying rates. In 1959, the rate of tax on stock transfers was lowered
from 0.06 to 0.04 percent but, importantly, was changed to a tax on stocks’ market value
instead of par value.
Congress repealed the tax in 1965, effective at the end of that year.21
The Investment Company Institute, a critic of proposed financial transaction taxes, has
characterized the 1965 repeal of the previous financial transaction tax as a response to
pragmatic problems posed by the tax. “By the end of 1965 – seven years after the tax base
was changed from par value to market value – the tax was viewed by Congress as
complicating securities transactionsand repealed,” the Institute wrote in 2010.22
But a review suggests that the Investment Company Institute’s conclusion was overblown.
The repeal of the financial transaction tax was part of a massive tax overhaul in which
18 TAYLOR LINCOLN, PUBLIC CITIZEN, A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ADDED COSTS FROM A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION
TAX WOULD BE MINUSCULE COMPARED TO FEES INVESTORS ALREADY PAY (March 12, 2014),
http://bit.ly/1izXoH9. Report compares existing transaction costs to prospective additional costs
posed by a 0.03 percent FTT.
19 Leonard E. Burman, William G. Gale, Sarah Gault, Bryan Kim, Jim Nunns, and Steve Rosenthal,
Financial Transaction Taxes In Theory And Practice, TAX POLICY CENTER (URBAN INSTITUTE AND BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION) (June 2015), http://tpc.io/1G7dCfz.
20 Release No. 34-74057, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (Jan. 15, 2015),
http://1.usa.gov/1KDxfNv.
21 LEONARD E. BURMAN, WILLIAM G. GALE, SARAH GAULT, BRYAN KIM, JIM NUNNS, AND STEVE ROSENTHAL, TAX
POLICY CENTER, FINANCIAL TRANSACTION TAXES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (June 2015),
http://tpc.io/1CKHkp7.
22 Fact Sheet: Transaction Tax History: Proposed Securities Transaction Tax Is Far Greater Than Any in
U.S. History, INVESTMENT COMPANY INSTITUTE (Feb. 2, 2010), http://bit.ly/1KjDZTA.
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 7
excise taxes of all stripes were cut by $4.6 billion over several years.23 The aspect of the
financial transaction tax that concerned transfers of stocks was yielding only about $20
million per year in revenue (about $155 million today), according to congressional
testimony by the president of the New York Stock Exchange.24
At the time, the tax code included myriad excise taxes, many of which were instituted to
meet special needs arising from World War II and the Korean War. Jewelry, watches, furs,
cosmetics, handbags, musical instruments, mechanical pens, playing cards, automobiles and
dozens of other products were subject to excise taxes of varying rates.25 The 1965 tax
reform bill eliminated many of these taxes.
Financial transaction taxes do not appear to have been a major point of discussion in the
debate over the 1965 bill, nor in the years leading up to it.
In 1964, New York Stock Exchange President Keith Funston testified before the U.S. House
Ways and Means Committee as the committee was embarking on a study of excise taxes.
Funston asked that the tax on new stock issues be repealed and that certain other
exemptions be granted. With regard to the tax on the transfer of stocks, the item that most
closely parallels current financial transaction tax proposals, Funston’s request was modest.
Instead of repeal, he asked that it be reduced from 4 cents per $100 to 3 cents.26
Economic data from 1959 to 1965, the years in which the legacy financial transaction tax
most closely paralleled current proposals, fail to support claims put forth by critics that a
modern day financial transaction tax would be harmful. From 1959 to 1965, the average
annual percentage gain in the U.S. gross domestic product was 5 percent.27 To put that in
perspective, the U.S. economy has not expanded by more than 5 percent in a single year
since 1983.28
The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 65 percent (not including gains from
dividends) from 1959-65. That was an average of 9.3 percent per year, which most experts
would deem healthy.29
There were myriad other variables, many of which were undoubtedly far more influential
than the financial transaction tax. But these figures indicate that the transaction tax must
not have been a significant drag on the economy.
23 John D. Morris, Senate-House Conferees Agree on a $4.6 Billion Excise Tax Cut, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(June 16, 1965).
24 Big Board’s President Urges Transfer Taxes on Securities Be Cut, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (June 29,
1964).
25 Id.
26 Id.
27 BEA: GDP Percent Change From Preceding Period, U.S. BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS,
http://bit.ly/1V6mvgx.
28 Id.
29 Dow Jones Industrial Average History, FEDPRIMERATE.COM, http://bit.ly/1Quf55h.
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 8
What would have happened if the aspect of the 1965 financial transaction tax that pertained
to transfers of stocks had remained in place? We did not consider the would-be revenue
concerning transfers of bonds nor new issues of securities. Because financial derivatives
were not included in the previous financial transaction tax, we did not consider them for
this report, even though they are part of current proposals.
We found that the stock-transfer tax would have generated $335 billion in actual dollars
from the half century spanning 1966 to 2014. [See table, page 10] A little more than $296
billion of that revenue would have accrued since 2000, befitting the markedly higher
trading volumes and values of stocks since then.
In inflation-adjusted (2014) dollars, the tax would have netted $399.4 billion, of which $333
billion would have accrued since 2000. That would have meant an average of more than $22
billion a year in revenue since 2000.
Actual revenue would have likely been less because the tax would have deterred high-
frequency trading activities and may have slightly dampened other trading activities. Robert
Pollin and James Heintz in 2011 estimated that a 0.03 percent financial transaction tax (as
proposed by DeFazio and Harkin) would reduce stock trading by 3.7 to 10.3 percent,
depending on various assumptions on elasticity that have been put forth by other
economists.30 Elasticity in this context refers to the effect that a given change in transaction
costs would have on trading levels.
International Monetary Fund economist Thornton Matheson has forecast a higher elasticity
level than those modeled by Polin and Heintz. This means that trading would decline
further under a 0.03 percent tax using Matheson’s assumptions.31
Pollin and Heintz predicted a dramatically more significant reduction in trading if a higher
financial transaction tax were passed. They estimated that a tax of 0.5 percent, such as that
proposed by Sanders and Ellison, would reduce trading by 45 to 83 percent.32
Even if trading volume were cut in half by the financial transaction tax, an absurdly high
estimate in the context of a 0.04 percent tax that existed in the 1960s, that still would have
yielded $200 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars since the 1966 repeal. The tax would have
yielded a little more than $165 billion since 2000, an average of $11 billion a year. In
30 Robert Pollin and James Heintz, Transaction Costs, Trading Elasticities and the Revenue Potential of
Financial Transaction Taxes for the United States, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (December
2011), http://bit.ly/1Ik77Yh. This model assumes present day transaction costs of 0.25 percent.
Pollin and Heintz also modeled the effects of various FTTs if pre-FTT transaction costs were assumed
to be 0.5 percent. Under those scenarios, the dampening effect of an FTT on trading levels would be
about half as much.
31 Thornton Matheson, Taxing Financial Transactions: Issues and Evidence, IMF Working Paper,
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (2011), http://bit.ly/1KDCGvK.
32 Robert Pollin and James Heintz, Transaction Costs, Trading Elasticities and the Revenue Potential of
Financial Transaction Taxes for the United States, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (December
2011), http://bit.ly/1Ik77Yh.
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 9
contrast, the budget of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the chief watchdog
charged with ensuring the integrity of stock markets, was only about $1.6 billion in fiscal
year 2015.33
Conclusion
The economy functioned well during a period of time in which a financial transaction tax
with similar characteristics to some currently proposed policies was in effect. The record
from the legacy financial transaction tax provides no evidence to suggest that reinstitution
of it would have damaging effects on the economy or stock market. If the tax were
reinstituted, it would dampen trading strategies that are of dubious social value and would
yield revenue to invest in the public good.
33 FY 2016 Budget Request and Tables, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (Feb. 2, 2015),
http://1.usa.gov/1YwoJKq.
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 10
Would-Be Revenue From 0.04 Percent Financial Transaction Tax (1966 to 2014)
Value of Sales of Stocks
Would Be
FTT Revenue
Value of Sale of Stocks
(in 2014 Dollars)
Would Be FTT Revenue
(inflation adjusted)*
1966 $123,034,188,000
1
$49,213,675 $670,564,114,286 $359,587,920
1967 $161,746,000,000
2
$64,698,400 $898,969,800,320 $458,576,061
1968 $196,358,000,000
3
$78,543,200 $1,146,440,151,377 $534,310,431
1969 $175,298,000,000
4
$70,119,200 $1,335,776,077,241 $452,308,963
1970 $131,126,000,000
5
$52,450,400 $1,130,772,406,757 $320,023,142
1971 $185,031,000,000
6
$74,012,400 $800,057,854,021 $432,627,149
1972 $204,026,299,000
7
$81,610,520 $1,081,567,872,000 $462,204,497
1973 $179,000,000,000
8
$71,600,000 $1,155,511,242,107 $381,763,459
1974 $118,000,000,000
9
$47,200,000 $954,408,648,649 $226,651,911
1975 $157,000,000,000
10
$62,800,000 $566,629,776,876 $276,338,677
1976 $195,000,000,000
11
$78,000,000 $690,846,691,450 $324,523,866
1977 $187,000,000,000
12
$74,800,000 $811,309,666,081 $292,208,792
1978 $249,000,000,000
13
$99,600,000 $730,521,980,198 $361,639,656
1979 $300,000,000,000
14
$120,000,000 $904,099,141,104 $391,299,174
1980 $522,000,000,000
15
$208,800,000 $978,247,933,884 $599,884,427
1981 $532,000,000,000
16
$212,800,000 $1,499,711,067,961 $554,207,050
1982 $1,023,000,000,000
17
$409,200,000 $1,385,517,623,762 $1,003,858,769
1983 $1,004,000,000,000
18
$401,600,000 $2,509,646,922,280 $954,549,976
1984 $1,260,000,000,000
19
$504,000,000 $2,386,374,939,759 $1,148,363,272
1985 $1,868,000,000,000
20
$747,200,000 $2,870,908,180,943 $1,643,951,108
1986 $1,868,000,000,000
21
$747,200,000 $4,109,877,769,517 $1,613,952,000
1987 $2,492,000,000,000
22
$996,800,000 $4,034,880,000,000 $2,077,275,042
1988 $1,699,000,000,000
23
$679,600,000 $5,193,187,605,634 $1,359,981,281
1989 $2,010,000,000,000
24
$804,000,000 $3,399,953,203,719 $1,534,965,677
1990 $2,153,676,000,000
25
$861,470,400 $3,837,414,193,548 $1,560,375,338
1991 $2,590,422,000,000
26
$1,036,168,800 $3,900,938,343,810 $1,801,016,571
1992 $3,077,507,000,000
27
$1,231,002,800 $4,502,541,428,722 $2,077,139,550
1993 $4,179,743,000,000
28
$1,671,897,200 $5,192,848,874,925 $2,739,088,274
1994 $4,501,577,000,000
29
$1,800,630,800 $6,847,720,684,069 $2,876,343,678
1995 $6,207,746,000,000
30
$2,483,098,400 $7,190,859,194,818 $3,857,209,861
1996 $8,123,748,000,000
31
$3,249,499,200 $9,643,024,652,598 $4,902,953,745
1997 $11,487,872,000,000
32
$4,595,148,800 $12,257,384,362,830 $6,777,801,535
1998 $14,903,153,000,000
33
$5,961,261,200 $16,944,503,836,710 $8,657,945,592
1999 $22,813,331,000,000
34
$9,125,332,400 $21,644,863,979,190 $12,966,954,928
2000 $35,557,087,000,000
35
$14,222,834,800 $32,417,387,320,624 $19,553,176,650
2001 $25,636,203,000,000
36
$10,254,481,200 $48,882,941,626,202 $13,707,537,331
2002 $22,657,944,000,000
37
$9,063,177,600 $34,268,843,328,108 $11,927,843,075
2003 $22,290,859,000,000
38
$8,916,343,600 $29,819,607,687,258 $11,474,339,631
2004 $27,090,516,000,000
39
$10,836,206,400 $28,685,849,077,104 $13,580,307,879
2005 $33,219,676,000,000
40
$13,287,870,400 $33,950,769,697,067 $16,107,103,364
2006 $43,940,594,000,000
41
$17,576,237,600 $40,267,758,410,323 $20,639,524,725
2007 $66,135,906,000,000
42
$26,454,362,400 $51,598,811,811,429 $30,204,685,675
2008 $82,012,446,000,000
43
$32,804,978,400 $75,511,714,186,301 $36,070,650,973
2009 $59,849,805,000,000
44
$23,939,922,000 $90,176,627,433,227 $26,417,081,317
2010 $64,008,305,000,000
45
$25,603,322,000 $66,042,703,293,511 $27,796,657,909
2011 $70,100,192,000,000
46
$28,040,076,800 $69,491,644,772,352 $29,510,647,870
2012 $59,370,606,000,000
47
$23,748,242,400 $73,776,619,676,054 $24,486,980,987
2013 $62,899,444,000,000
48
$25,159,777,600 $61,217,452,468,340 $25,567,916,439
2014 $65,466,822,523,005
49
$26,186,729,009 $63,919,791,097,859 $26,186,729,009
$837,204,025,010,005 $334,881,610,004 $998,703,224,629,913 $399,481,289,852
* Adjusted by the Consumer Price Index, provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax
October 8, 2015 11
Footnotes for Table
1 Id.
2 Id.
3 Id.
4 Id.
5 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce (1973), at 460.
6 Id.
7 Id.
8 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce (1980), at 545.
9 Id.
10 Id.
11 Id.
12 Id.
13 Id.
14 Id.
15 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce (1990), at 510.
16 Id.
17 Id.
18 Id.
19 Id.
20 Id.
21 Id.
22 Id.
23 Id.
24 Id.
25 Select SEC And Market Data Fiscal 2006, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (2006), at 29,
http://1.usa.gov/1KjMZrQ.
26 Id.
27 Id.
28 Id.
29 Id.
30 Id.
31 Id.
32 Id.
33 Id.
34 Id.
35 Id.
36 Id.
37 Id.
38 Id.
39 Id.
40 Id.
41 Select Sec And Market Data Fiscal 2104, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (2014), at 27,
http://1.usa.gov/1UY14y6.
42 Id.
43 Id.
44 Id.
45 Id.
46 Id.
47 Id.
48 Id.
49 Historic Market Volume Data, BATS GLOBAL MARKETS (2014) BATS GLOBAL MARKETS (2014).

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Financial transaction-tax-old-solution-new-problem-2015-report

  • 1. October 8, 2015 The Financial Transaction Tax An Old Solution to a New Problem www.citizen.org
  • 2. Acknowledgments This report was written by Taylor Lincoln, research director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, and edited by Congress Watch Deputy Director Susan Harley. About Public Citizen Public Citizen is a national non-profit organization with more than 400,000 members and supporters. We represent consumer interests through lobbying, litigation, administrative advocacy, research, and public education on a broad range of issues including consumer rights in the marketplace, product safety, financial regulation, worker safety, safe and affordable health care, campaign finance reform and government ethics, fair trade, climate change, and corporate and government accountability. Public Citizen’s Congress Watch 215 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E. Washington, D.C. 20003 P: 202-454-5139 F: 202-547-7392 http://www.citizen.org © 2015 Public Citizen. All rights reserved
  • 3. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 3 roposals to tax financial transactions, such as sales of stocks, have commanded attention in recent years, especially since the financial crisis of 2008. These proposals typically call for a tax on stock sales that is so small that ordinary investors would hardly notice it but nevertheless raises substantial revenue, largely from high- volume traders.1 Aside from taxing sales of stock, financial transaction tax proposals also call in varying ways for taxing transactions in bonds, derivatives and other financial products. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) (now retired) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) proposed legislation in 2013 and in earlier sessions of Congress that would have taxed stock transactions at 0.03 percent (3 cents on every $100).2 The Harkin-DeFazio proposal would have generated $352 billion over 10 years, according to analysis that the Joint Committee on Taxation furnished to Harkin and DeFazio in 2011.3 Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) favor a significantly larger financial transaction tax of 0.5 percent, or 50 cents on every $100, for stock trades. Their proposals also call for taxes of 0.1 percent for bond trades, and 0.005 for derivative trades.4 Former President George H.W. Bush (R) and former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R- Kan.) supported versions of financial transaction taxes in the early-1990s.5 Richard Darman, director of the Office of Management of Budget under the first President Bush and Bush I Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady proposed a financial transaction tax of 0.5 percent on stocks and bonds.6 A proposal has been pending since 2014 in the European Union to implement a financial transaction tax, tentatively set at 0.1 percent on sales of stock and at a lower rate for 1 TAYLOR LINCOLN, PUBLIC CITIZEN, A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ADDED COSTS FROM A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION TAX WOULD BE MINUSCULE COMPARED TO FEES INVESTORS ALREADY PAY (March 12, 2014), http://bit.ly/1izXoH9. Report compares existing transaction costs to prospective additional costs posed by a 0.03 percent FTT. 2 S.410 – Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Act (introduced Feb. 28, 2013), http://1.usa.gov/1guzFGk. 3 Office of Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore), Press Release, Memo: Joint Tax Committee Finds Harkin, DeFazio Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Generates More Than $350 Billion (Nov. 9, 2011), http://1.usa.gov/KgULbb. 4 Alan K. Ota, Sanders Presses for Vote on Financial Transaction Tax, ROLL CALL (June 24, 2015), http://bit.ly/1guzZF0 and H.R.1579 - Inclusive Prosperity Act of 2013 (introduced April 16, 2013), http://1.usa.gov/1NG8erI. 5 See, e.g., MARK P. KEIGHTLEY, A SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAX: FINANCIAL MARKETS AND REVENUE EFFECTS, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (June 12, 2012), http://bit.ly/1Lc4bgd and PROPOSED TRANSACTION TAX DOESN’T ‘MAKE SENSE,’ AMEX CHAIRMAN SAYS, SECURITIES WEEK (June 11, 1990) and William G. Laffer III, The Worst Tax Hike (Executive Memorandum #278 on Taxes), HERITAGE FOUNDATION (Aug. 9, 1990), http://herit.ag/1L2pWjt. 6 Scott W. MacCormack, A Critique of the Reemerging Securities Transfer Excise Tax, 44 THE TAX LAWYER 927-941 (Spring 1991), http://bit.ly/1FQ6FVH. P
  • 4. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 4 transactions in financial derivatives.7 At present, 11 of the 28 EU countries are negotiating an agreement through which they would implement an FTT. The participating countries account for about 90 percent of the European Union’s aggregate GDP.8 They are negotiating under the auspices of the European Union’s “enhanced cooperation” permissions, which allow a subset of the EU’s members to enter into treaties.9 European Union Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said in September 2015 that the participating countries were closing in on a deal. “Today, we made important, if not decisive, progress.” Moscovici said “This deal is within reach.”10 Proponents of such taxes typically envision them as serving both as sources of revenue and as dampeners on casino-style trading activities. The relatively new phenomenon of high- frequency trading, in which stocks are bought and sold in millisecond intervals, has altered the way markets work and presented an array of risks and injustices. High-speed traders deploy computers that are programed to buy or sell stocks based on algorithms. Some have estimated that high-frequency trading accounts for up to 60 percent of all stock trades.11 The strategies used by high-frequency traders are anathema to the traditional understanding of investment, which is the purchase of goods or assets in the hope that they will generate revenue or appreciate in value in the future.12 Most people would likely agree that a person would need to retain an asset for longer than a split second for it to count as a legitimate investment.13 Certain aspects of high-frequency trading strategies are simply unfair. High-frequency trades are often made on the basis of inside information purchased from markets or discerned by deceptive means on what stocks other investors are attempting to buy or sell. The computer-traders are then able to exploit that information.14 7 Capital Markets Union Another Obstacle for FTT, EURACTIV.COM (Sept. 4, 2015), http://bit.ly/1KoUxX9. 8 Press release, European Parliament News, Eleven EU Countries Get Parliament's All Clear for a Financial Transaction Tax (Dec. 12, 2012), http://bit.ly/1LrRMK0. The participating countries are Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. 9 Press release, European Commission, Financial Transaction Tax Under Enhanced Cooperation: Commission Sets Out the Details (Feb. 14, 2013), http://bit.ly/1KqZeCZ. 10 EU Deal on Financial Transactions Tax ‘Within Reach’: Moscovici, REUTERS (Sept. 12, 2015), http://reut.rs/1ib0JLP. 11 See, e.g., Tom Polansek, High-Frequency Trading Does Not Raise Futures Volatility –Study, REUTERS (Aug. 27, 2013) http://reut.rs/1luzSXF; Matthew Philips, How the Robots Lost: High-Frequency Trading’s Rise and Fall, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK (June 6, 2013), http://buswk.co/1ciOiDs.; Charles Duhigg, Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds, THE NEW YORK TIMES (July 23, 2009), http://nyti.ms/1koMVt4; Kambiz Foroohar, Trading Pennies Into $7 Billion Drives High-Frequency’s Cowboys, BLOOMBERG NEWS (Oct. 6, 2010), http://bloom.bg/1ftPMlx. 12 See, e.g., Definition of Investment, INVESTOPEDIA, http://bit.ly/1QkDxpJ. 13 High-Frequency Traders Need a Speed Limit, BLOOMBERG (Jan. 25, 2015), http://bv.ms/1UYLLdL. 14 Charles Duhigg, Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds, THE NEW YORK TIMES (July 23, 2009), http://nyti.ms/1koMVt4
  • 5. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 5 For instance, if a high-frequency trading computer is aware of a mutual fund attempting to purchase a large block of a certain stock (which would almost inevitably drive that stock’s price up marginally), the high-frequency trader can profit by entering an instantaneous order or, even more lucrative, a split second ahead of the other trade. High-frequency traders gain added advantages by locating their operations close to markets’ physical locations and implementing other technology to ensure that their orders are received ahead of others, even if only by a millionth of a second.15 Aside from being unfair in certain ways, high-frequency trading may also pose a risk of destabilizing markets and putting ordinary investors’ funds in jeopardy. On May 6, 2010, the stock market lost 1,000 points in just a few minutes in an episode known as the “flash crash.” Regulators subsequently blamed high-frequency trading for exacerbating the volatility. One explanation was that the market had become so dependent on high- frequency traders that a sudden withdrawal of their trading activity (perhaps due to some signal detected by algorithm) could create a false sense of scarcity of demand for stocks, causing prices to plummet. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission wrote in analysis of the flash crash: “While the withdrawal of a single participant may not significantly impact the entire market, a liquidity crisis can develop if many market participants withdraw at the same time. This, in turn, can lead to the breakdown of a fair and orderly price-discovery process.”16 Liquidity refers to the ease with which an asset can be bought or sold without significant change to its price. Some critics have forecast harmful effects on the market if a tax were enacted. But the costs that would be imposed by even the boldest proposals would be less than transaction costs that existed a couple of decades ago. “Transaction costs have indeed fallen dramatically across financial markets over the past 35 years due to advances in information technology, deregulation, and product innovation,” International Monetary Fund economist Thornton Matheson wrote in 2011. For example, bid/ask spreads, which refer to the difference in the price to sell a stock or purchase a stock, have fallen from greater than 1 percent to 0.1 percent.17 The transaction costs that do remain – including diminished bid/ask spreads, commissions and overhead fees charged by mutual funds – dwarf the fees that investors would pay to 15 Id. and High-Frequency Traders Need a Speed Limit, BLOOMBERG (Jan. 25, 2015), http://bv.ms/1UYLLdL. 16 Findings Regarding The Market Events of May 6, 2010, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION AND COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION (Sept. 10, 2010), http://1.usa.gov/1YgGopm . 17 Thornton Matheson, Taxing Financial Transactions: Issues and Evidence, IMF Working Paper, INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (2011), http://bit.ly/1KDCGvK.
  • 6. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 6 comply with a modest financial transaction tax, as Public Citizen illustrated in a 2014 report.18 A truly minuscule financial transaction tax dating to the 1930s provides funds to operate the Securities and Exchange Commission. But that tax, which currently stands at 0.00184 percent (less than 2 cents for every thousand dollars traded), is just a fraction of even the low end of new proposals for transaction taxes.19 That tax was forecast to raise $886 million in 2015.20 Political observers treat as novel certain recent proposals in the United States for a more significant financial transaction tax. Little attention has been paid to the fact that the United States had a financial transaction tax in place from 1914 to 1965. In its later years, the tax was similar in some respects to that proposed by Harkin and DeFazio. The rates of the tax varied from 0.02 to 0.06 percent. For most of the time, the tax was levied on the “par value” of a stock, which is the listed value on stock certificates and is usually below market value. Transfers of bonds, as well as new issues of stocks and bonds also were taxed at varying rates. In 1959, the rate of tax on stock transfers was lowered from 0.06 to 0.04 percent but, importantly, was changed to a tax on stocks’ market value instead of par value. Congress repealed the tax in 1965, effective at the end of that year.21 The Investment Company Institute, a critic of proposed financial transaction taxes, has characterized the 1965 repeal of the previous financial transaction tax as a response to pragmatic problems posed by the tax. “By the end of 1965 – seven years after the tax base was changed from par value to market value – the tax was viewed by Congress as complicating securities transactionsand repealed,” the Institute wrote in 2010.22 But a review suggests that the Investment Company Institute’s conclusion was overblown. The repeal of the financial transaction tax was part of a massive tax overhaul in which 18 TAYLOR LINCOLN, PUBLIC CITIZEN, A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ADDED COSTS FROM A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION TAX WOULD BE MINUSCULE COMPARED TO FEES INVESTORS ALREADY PAY (March 12, 2014), http://bit.ly/1izXoH9. Report compares existing transaction costs to prospective additional costs posed by a 0.03 percent FTT. 19 Leonard E. Burman, William G. Gale, Sarah Gault, Bryan Kim, Jim Nunns, and Steve Rosenthal, Financial Transaction Taxes In Theory And Practice, TAX POLICY CENTER (URBAN INSTITUTE AND BROOKINGS INSTITUTION) (June 2015), http://tpc.io/1G7dCfz. 20 Release No. 34-74057, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (Jan. 15, 2015), http://1.usa.gov/1KDxfNv. 21 LEONARD E. BURMAN, WILLIAM G. GALE, SARAH GAULT, BRYAN KIM, JIM NUNNS, AND STEVE ROSENTHAL, TAX POLICY CENTER, FINANCIAL TRANSACTION TAXES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (June 2015), http://tpc.io/1CKHkp7. 22 Fact Sheet: Transaction Tax History: Proposed Securities Transaction Tax Is Far Greater Than Any in U.S. History, INVESTMENT COMPANY INSTITUTE (Feb. 2, 2010), http://bit.ly/1KjDZTA.
  • 7. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 7 excise taxes of all stripes were cut by $4.6 billion over several years.23 The aspect of the financial transaction tax that concerned transfers of stocks was yielding only about $20 million per year in revenue (about $155 million today), according to congressional testimony by the president of the New York Stock Exchange.24 At the time, the tax code included myriad excise taxes, many of which were instituted to meet special needs arising from World War II and the Korean War. Jewelry, watches, furs, cosmetics, handbags, musical instruments, mechanical pens, playing cards, automobiles and dozens of other products were subject to excise taxes of varying rates.25 The 1965 tax reform bill eliminated many of these taxes. Financial transaction taxes do not appear to have been a major point of discussion in the debate over the 1965 bill, nor in the years leading up to it. In 1964, New York Stock Exchange President Keith Funston testified before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee as the committee was embarking on a study of excise taxes. Funston asked that the tax on new stock issues be repealed and that certain other exemptions be granted. With regard to the tax on the transfer of stocks, the item that most closely parallels current financial transaction tax proposals, Funston’s request was modest. Instead of repeal, he asked that it be reduced from 4 cents per $100 to 3 cents.26 Economic data from 1959 to 1965, the years in which the legacy financial transaction tax most closely paralleled current proposals, fail to support claims put forth by critics that a modern day financial transaction tax would be harmful. From 1959 to 1965, the average annual percentage gain in the U.S. gross domestic product was 5 percent.27 To put that in perspective, the U.S. economy has not expanded by more than 5 percent in a single year since 1983.28 The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 65 percent (not including gains from dividends) from 1959-65. That was an average of 9.3 percent per year, which most experts would deem healthy.29 There were myriad other variables, many of which were undoubtedly far more influential than the financial transaction tax. But these figures indicate that the transaction tax must not have been a significant drag on the economy. 23 John D. Morris, Senate-House Conferees Agree on a $4.6 Billion Excise Tax Cut, THE NEW YORK TIMES (June 16, 1965). 24 Big Board’s President Urges Transfer Taxes on Securities Be Cut, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (June 29, 1964). 25 Id. 26 Id. 27 BEA: GDP Percent Change From Preceding Period, U.S. BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, http://bit.ly/1V6mvgx. 28 Id. 29 Dow Jones Industrial Average History, FEDPRIMERATE.COM, http://bit.ly/1Quf55h.
  • 8. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 8 What would have happened if the aspect of the 1965 financial transaction tax that pertained to transfers of stocks had remained in place? We did not consider the would-be revenue concerning transfers of bonds nor new issues of securities. Because financial derivatives were not included in the previous financial transaction tax, we did not consider them for this report, even though they are part of current proposals. We found that the stock-transfer tax would have generated $335 billion in actual dollars from the half century spanning 1966 to 2014. [See table, page 10] A little more than $296 billion of that revenue would have accrued since 2000, befitting the markedly higher trading volumes and values of stocks since then. In inflation-adjusted (2014) dollars, the tax would have netted $399.4 billion, of which $333 billion would have accrued since 2000. That would have meant an average of more than $22 billion a year in revenue since 2000. Actual revenue would have likely been less because the tax would have deterred high- frequency trading activities and may have slightly dampened other trading activities. Robert Pollin and James Heintz in 2011 estimated that a 0.03 percent financial transaction tax (as proposed by DeFazio and Harkin) would reduce stock trading by 3.7 to 10.3 percent, depending on various assumptions on elasticity that have been put forth by other economists.30 Elasticity in this context refers to the effect that a given change in transaction costs would have on trading levels. International Monetary Fund economist Thornton Matheson has forecast a higher elasticity level than those modeled by Polin and Heintz. This means that trading would decline further under a 0.03 percent tax using Matheson’s assumptions.31 Pollin and Heintz predicted a dramatically more significant reduction in trading if a higher financial transaction tax were passed. They estimated that a tax of 0.5 percent, such as that proposed by Sanders and Ellison, would reduce trading by 45 to 83 percent.32 Even if trading volume were cut in half by the financial transaction tax, an absurdly high estimate in the context of a 0.04 percent tax that existed in the 1960s, that still would have yielded $200 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars since the 1966 repeal. The tax would have yielded a little more than $165 billion since 2000, an average of $11 billion a year. In 30 Robert Pollin and James Heintz, Transaction Costs, Trading Elasticities and the Revenue Potential of Financial Transaction Taxes for the United States, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (December 2011), http://bit.ly/1Ik77Yh. This model assumes present day transaction costs of 0.25 percent. Pollin and Heintz also modeled the effects of various FTTs if pre-FTT transaction costs were assumed to be 0.5 percent. Under those scenarios, the dampening effect of an FTT on trading levels would be about half as much. 31 Thornton Matheson, Taxing Financial Transactions: Issues and Evidence, IMF Working Paper, INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (2011), http://bit.ly/1KDCGvK. 32 Robert Pollin and James Heintz, Transaction Costs, Trading Elasticities and the Revenue Potential of Financial Transaction Taxes for the United States, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (December 2011), http://bit.ly/1Ik77Yh.
  • 9. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 9 contrast, the budget of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the chief watchdog charged with ensuring the integrity of stock markets, was only about $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2015.33 Conclusion The economy functioned well during a period of time in which a financial transaction tax with similar characteristics to some currently proposed policies was in effect. The record from the legacy financial transaction tax provides no evidence to suggest that reinstitution of it would have damaging effects on the economy or stock market. If the tax were reinstituted, it would dampen trading strategies that are of dubious social value and would yield revenue to invest in the public good. 33 FY 2016 Budget Request and Tables, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (Feb. 2, 2015), http://1.usa.gov/1YwoJKq.
  • 10. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 10 Would-Be Revenue From 0.04 Percent Financial Transaction Tax (1966 to 2014) Value of Sales of Stocks Would Be FTT Revenue Value of Sale of Stocks (in 2014 Dollars) Would Be FTT Revenue (inflation adjusted)* 1966 $123,034,188,000 1 $49,213,675 $670,564,114,286 $359,587,920 1967 $161,746,000,000 2 $64,698,400 $898,969,800,320 $458,576,061 1968 $196,358,000,000 3 $78,543,200 $1,146,440,151,377 $534,310,431 1969 $175,298,000,000 4 $70,119,200 $1,335,776,077,241 $452,308,963 1970 $131,126,000,000 5 $52,450,400 $1,130,772,406,757 $320,023,142 1971 $185,031,000,000 6 $74,012,400 $800,057,854,021 $432,627,149 1972 $204,026,299,000 7 $81,610,520 $1,081,567,872,000 $462,204,497 1973 $179,000,000,000 8 $71,600,000 $1,155,511,242,107 $381,763,459 1974 $118,000,000,000 9 $47,200,000 $954,408,648,649 $226,651,911 1975 $157,000,000,000 10 $62,800,000 $566,629,776,876 $276,338,677 1976 $195,000,000,000 11 $78,000,000 $690,846,691,450 $324,523,866 1977 $187,000,000,000 12 $74,800,000 $811,309,666,081 $292,208,792 1978 $249,000,000,000 13 $99,600,000 $730,521,980,198 $361,639,656 1979 $300,000,000,000 14 $120,000,000 $904,099,141,104 $391,299,174 1980 $522,000,000,000 15 $208,800,000 $978,247,933,884 $599,884,427 1981 $532,000,000,000 16 $212,800,000 $1,499,711,067,961 $554,207,050 1982 $1,023,000,000,000 17 $409,200,000 $1,385,517,623,762 $1,003,858,769 1983 $1,004,000,000,000 18 $401,600,000 $2,509,646,922,280 $954,549,976 1984 $1,260,000,000,000 19 $504,000,000 $2,386,374,939,759 $1,148,363,272 1985 $1,868,000,000,000 20 $747,200,000 $2,870,908,180,943 $1,643,951,108 1986 $1,868,000,000,000 21 $747,200,000 $4,109,877,769,517 $1,613,952,000 1987 $2,492,000,000,000 22 $996,800,000 $4,034,880,000,000 $2,077,275,042 1988 $1,699,000,000,000 23 $679,600,000 $5,193,187,605,634 $1,359,981,281 1989 $2,010,000,000,000 24 $804,000,000 $3,399,953,203,719 $1,534,965,677 1990 $2,153,676,000,000 25 $861,470,400 $3,837,414,193,548 $1,560,375,338 1991 $2,590,422,000,000 26 $1,036,168,800 $3,900,938,343,810 $1,801,016,571 1992 $3,077,507,000,000 27 $1,231,002,800 $4,502,541,428,722 $2,077,139,550 1993 $4,179,743,000,000 28 $1,671,897,200 $5,192,848,874,925 $2,739,088,274 1994 $4,501,577,000,000 29 $1,800,630,800 $6,847,720,684,069 $2,876,343,678 1995 $6,207,746,000,000 30 $2,483,098,400 $7,190,859,194,818 $3,857,209,861 1996 $8,123,748,000,000 31 $3,249,499,200 $9,643,024,652,598 $4,902,953,745 1997 $11,487,872,000,000 32 $4,595,148,800 $12,257,384,362,830 $6,777,801,535 1998 $14,903,153,000,000 33 $5,961,261,200 $16,944,503,836,710 $8,657,945,592 1999 $22,813,331,000,000 34 $9,125,332,400 $21,644,863,979,190 $12,966,954,928 2000 $35,557,087,000,000 35 $14,222,834,800 $32,417,387,320,624 $19,553,176,650 2001 $25,636,203,000,000 36 $10,254,481,200 $48,882,941,626,202 $13,707,537,331 2002 $22,657,944,000,000 37 $9,063,177,600 $34,268,843,328,108 $11,927,843,075 2003 $22,290,859,000,000 38 $8,916,343,600 $29,819,607,687,258 $11,474,339,631 2004 $27,090,516,000,000 39 $10,836,206,400 $28,685,849,077,104 $13,580,307,879 2005 $33,219,676,000,000 40 $13,287,870,400 $33,950,769,697,067 $16,107,103,364 2006 $43,940,594,000,000 41 $17,576,237,600 $40,267,758,410,323 $20,639,524,725 2007 $66,135,906,000,000 42 $26,454,362,400 $51,598,811,811,429 $30,204,685,675 2008 $82,012,446,000,000 43 $32,804,978,400 $75,511,714,186,301 $36,070,650,973 2009 $59,849,805,000,000 44 $23,939,922,000 $90,176,627,433,227 $26,417,081,317 2010 $64,008,305,000,000 45 $25,603,322,000 $66,042,703,293,511 $27,796,657,909 2011 $70,100,192,000,000 46 $28,040,076,800 $69,491,644,772,352 $29,510,647,870 2012 $59,370,606,000,000 47 $23,748,242,400 $73,776,619,676,054 $24,486,980,987 2013 $62,899,444,000,000 48 $25,159,777,600 $61,217,452,468,340 $25,567,916,439 2014 $65,466,822,523,005 49 $26,186,729,009 $63,919,791,097,859 $26,186,729,009 $837,204,025,010,005 $334,881,610,004 $998,703,224,629,913 $399,481,289,852 * Adjusted by the Consumer Price Index, provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  • 11. Public Citizen The Financial Transaction Tax October 8, 2015 11 Footnotes for Table 1 Id. 2 Id. 3 Id. 4 Id. 5 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce (1973), at 460. 6 Id. 7 Id. 8 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce (1980), at 545. 9 Id. 10 Id. 11 Id. 12 Id. 13 Id. 14 Id. 15 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce (1990), at 510. 16 Id. 17 Id. 18 Id. 19 Id. 20 Id. 21 Id. 22 Id. 23 Id. 24 Id. 25 Select SEC And Market Data Fiscal 2006, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (2006), at 29, http://1.usa.gov/1KjMZrQ. 26 Id. 27 Id. 28 Id. 29 Id. 30 Id. 31 Id. 32 Id. 33 Id. 34 Id. 35 Id. 36 Id. 37 Id. 38 Id. 39 Id. 40 Id. 41 Select Sec And Market Data Fiscal 2104, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (2014), at 27, http://1.usa.gov/1UY14y6. 42 Id. 43 Id. 44 Id. 45 Id. 46 Id. 47 Id. 48 Id. 49 Historic Market Volume Data, BATS GLOBAL MARKETS (2014) BATS GLOBAL MARKETS (2014).