TAX NEWS - June 2010

Global bank tax dismissed

Due to stern opposition from Canada and several other countries, the Group of 20 finance ministers dismissed plans for a global bank tax, giving individual nations more freedom to decide how banks will pay for any future bailouts.

"By putting on a global tax, it would be treating the entire economy the same," said George Hugh, ING Direct's president of broker services and treasury. "Now they are saying there are differences between differenct countries, and leaving it up to them to come up with their own policies."

Ending this past Saturday in Busan, Korea, the two-day meeting was held to review the progress on initiatives designed to make the financial systems safer after last year's global economic collapse.

A bank tax, pushed for by the United States, Britain and France, would have levied all global financial institutions. All three countries spent billions of taxpayer dollars to save their biggest financial organizations. The money would have been placed in a fund as insurance in case of a future financial crisis, or sent to the general revenues of national governments.