Austrian Finance Minister: Plans for European FTT may be cancelled
June 3, 2016
Austria’s finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling has said that a European financial transaction tax (FTT) may not be implemented at all, and negotiations cancelled, if the countries cannot come to a common agreement.
The 28 EU member states had been discussing an FTT for four years, but have so far failed to reach a consensus. Several states have dropped out of negotiations already, bringing the number of countries backing talks for an FTT down to ten. Following disagreements on issues such as revenue allocation and types of trades to tax, the remaining ten countries aimed to have come to an agreement by the middle of the year.
But in May, the Belgian finance minister indicated that the country may drop out of negotiations.
Schelling said Belgium, and potentially also Slovenia, may leave the negotiations as soon as next week. If this happens, the FTT would not be implemented because the remaining number of EU states would drop below nine – and at least nine EU member states must back the tax in order for it to become law.
The original article is available here: http://www.automatedtrader.net/news/at/155672/austrian-finance–minister-plans-for-european-ftt-may-be-cancelled
