Automated Payment Transaction Tax
Background - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Payment_Transaction_tax
USA website - http://www.apttax.com/
a cost to you estimate - https://web.archive.org/web/20140110060700/http://thetransactiontax.org/
and this criticism - https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/03/16/after-indias-demonetisation-next-the-banking-transactions-tax-no-its-a-terrible-idea-dreadful/#5a723454133d
The tax is very simple, easy to implement, a transparent & calculable cost to individuals & business, and generally hated by financial organisations, global companies, and main-stream economists.
The main economic criticism is that any tax restricts the activity it taxes. This is often called the deadweight - the drag a tax makes on activity in the sector it taxes. It is assumed that if you have to pay more ( or get less in your pocket after tax ) then you avoid that activity.
So a Land Value Tax has the lowest deadweight ( we all need land ), then Consumption taxes ( GST VAT etc - we need to eat ), then Income Tax ( why work more if you take home less ), then Capital and Corporate Taxes ( why do business if you make less profit ) And theoretically at the peak, Transactions Taxes ( why do anything if you have less in your pocket! )
And governments adopt this argument, relying on Consumption and Income Tax as the least painful source of revenue.
Climate Change & Human Activity
This is exactly why I think an APT Tax is a good idea.
We all know we have to do something to reduce the impact of human induced climate change, to stall the changes, and to support communities bearing the brunt of the changes - bushfire ravaged States included.
We also know that climate specific policies, including carbon taxes, water allocations, fossil fuel subsidies, and community support payments are very hard to formulate and implement.
An APT Tax taxes the use of money - it does not consider the activity, the person involved, or the time frame - it basically taxes all forms of human activity. It provides government with a steady stream of income, daily topping up the federal reserves. It captures all forms of activity within a countries banking system - including global companies, prevents transfer pricing and other tax avoidance schemes.
So we all end up paying a tax that fairly matches our personal Footprint on the Earth.
Yes, it will have unexpected impacts on business, on development, and on social services, but that is what we have government for, to allocate the share of tax revenue to meet these needs, and to implement policy to meet community expectations.
We have got ourselves into this mess and it is time we all carried our share of fixing it - our Footprint matches our Use of Money - and a universal transaction tax is a fair way of doing this.
