TAX NEWS - 2010

Obama seeks to impose bank tax

US president Barack Obama, fresh from a win on a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations, today urged Congress to approve his proposal for a $90 billion tax on banks as the next step in reform.

Mr Obama wants to impose a 0.15 per cent tax on the liabilities of the biggest US financial institutions to recoup the costs to taxpayers of the financial bailout over the next 10 years.

"We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis - so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money," Mr Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address.

Mr Obama, who is in Canada to attend gatherings with leaders of the world's biggest economies, also used the address to welcome a deal by congressional negotiators on a historic rewriting of US financial regulations.

Mr Obama hopes to tout the changes as a model for other countries at the Group of 20 summit in Toronto today and tomorrow.