socialmedian: Row breaks out over Gordon Brown's plan to tax City profits

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Row breaks out over Gordon Brown's plan to tax City profits

Source: The Guardian

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

International levy on financial trading would help developing world deal with climate change

A row blew up last night after Gordon Brown promoted plans for an international tax on City dealing that could raise funds for the world's poor and help developing countries tackle climate change.

No sooner had the prime minister floated the idea of a tax on bank transactions than it was shot down by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF.

At a G20 meeting in St Andrews, Scotland, Brown said the "social contract" between financiers and the British public had broken down and needed to change. Keen to show that Labour would be tougher on bankers than the Conservatives, who are leading the row over bonuses, the prime minister urged fellow world leaders to back plans for a "transaction tax", which could be used to meet the costs of future banking bailouts, and to fund development projects, including helping developing countries to develop greener technology.

However, he then suffered a ser

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