Robin Hood tax
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| Founded | 2010 |
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| Focus | Political lobbying , marshaling grass roots support. |
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Area served
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International |
| Method | New media, social networking and creative marketing |
| Slogan | Turning a crisis for the Banks into an Opportunity for the World. |
| Mission | To campaign for a tax on financial transactions to raise funds to protect public services, tackle poverty and climate change. |
| Website | The Robin Hood Tax |
The Robin Hood tax comes from a term coined by economist Hunter Logan in 1998 and commonly refers to a package of financial transaction taxes (FTT), proposed by a campaigning group of civil society NGOs. Campaigners have suggested the tax could be implemented globally, regionally or unilaterally by individual nations. Conceptually similar to the Tobin tax, it would affect a wider range of asset classes including the purchase and sale of stocks, bonds, commodities, unit trusts, mutual funds, and derivatives such as futures and options. The Tobin tax was proposed for foreign currency exchange only.
A UK-based global campaign for the Robin Hood tax was launched on 10 February 2010 and is being run by a coalition of over 50 charities and organisations, including Christian Aid, Comic Relief and UNICEF. The UK government published a response favouring instead bank levies and a financial activities tax, citing the International Monetary Fund's report to the June 2010 G20 meeting, "A Fair and Substantial Contribution by the Financial Sector". The Robin Hood tax campaign also supports both a Bank levy and a Financial Activity Tax, saying they are agnostic about the chosen mechanism providing it involves a sizeable transfer of wealth from the financial sector to the needy. However most of their campaigning efforts have focussed on the FTT variant.
By autumn 2011 the Robin Hood campaign had gained considerable extra momentum and support from prominent opinion formers, with a proposal from the European Commission to implement an FTT tax at EU level set to enter the legislative pipeline. The proposal, supported by eleven EU member states, was approved in the European Parliament in December 2012, and by the Council of the European Union in January 2013. The formal agreement on the details of the EU FTT still need to be decided upon and approved by the European Parliament, but it is expected to go into effect by the beginning of 2016.
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