Advocates of the use of financial transactions tax to raise development funding have found a new ally in French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Sarkozy said in a Jan. 27 keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, financial transactions tax should be a priority of the G-20.
But the proposal for a financial transactions tax is not about to take off yet as the U.S. and U.K. governments oppose the idea, according to Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor.
“[S]upporters of the tax need to be clear about what the tax is for. If it is to be a tiny tax to raise money to fight poverty and raise funds to help poor countries adapt to climate change, not much sand will be thrown in the wheels of global finance. On the other hand, a tax that really clobbered the banks would not raise nearly as much money as the campaigners think,” Elliott writes in the “Poverty Matters” blog published in the Guardian.
