Following the 2008 financial sector collapse, Europeans have been slowly moving, somewhat in concert, towards new financial transactions taxes.   Last week, France jumped the gun:  it initiated a package of financial transaction taxes all on its own that includes a novel tax on high frequency stock orders. The high frequency tax applies to traders that [...]

Now that a once-obscure J.P. Morgan Chase derivatives trader named Bruno Iksil has become infamous as the London Whale, I suppose it is time to ask whether what he does should be subject to new taxes. The question predated Mr. Iksil’s misadventures, of course. Ever since the U.S. financial crash of 2008 and the beginnings of [...]

The other day, I posted on a paper by Doug Shackelford, Dan Shaviro, and Joel Slemrod that is a terrific framework for thinking about bank taxes. The authors looked at four ways to tax the banking business in the wake of the recent financial collapse—a transactions tax, a tax on bonuses paid to employees, and two levies on banks themselves.

The temptation to raise taxes on financial institutions is almost too great to resist. These institutions were largely responsible for the recent economic crisis. While the financial collapse cost millions of Americans their livelihoods, many top bank executives happily took their bonuses (in some cases paid with taxpayer money). And the arrogance and sense of entitlement that oozes from some is beyond offensive.