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An electronic transaction tax?

You are probably well aware that cash is 'dying' as customers nowadays prefer to pay for things using plastic cards and other electronic methods. In fact an increasing proportion of the younger generation no longer carries cash but instead pays for everything electronically.


Therefore would it be a sensible idea to charge a tax on electronic transactions as a reliable source of government revenue?


It's notable that there was a time when a cheque payment incurred a 2d (old pence) tax but this was abolished around 1970.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    I already pay many taxes to the government on all the money and interest I earn. If the banks are already using my personal money, which is in their stewardship, to make huge profits for themselves, and at our risk not theirs (see banking crises where customers lost out or the taxpayer bailed out bank(er)s), plus, banks are not paying any realistic interest on having the privilege of using our money for their profits and huge bonuses, but charge huge fees for our mortgages and loans, why should we now have to pay more taxes for using our money in any manual or electronic format? Same for business accounts - all banking using customer's money should be free.


    UK has only recently banned debit and credit card charges for private money transactions, why would reintroducing a transaction tax on use of my own money be a good thing or acceptable?


    One alternative might be to charge all banks and commercial money companies using our money via a 'Tobin tax' on any of their commercial banking transactions. This Tobin transaction tax has to come out of their profits (no accounting tricks) and not passed on in any direct or indirect way to customers whose money they are using for their commercial and bankers personal gain.
  • Seeing as we already pay a govenment imposed tax on every transaction anyway in the form of VAT, which gets them something for every transaction be it cash or card, why would they risk missing out on people going back to paying by cash again?
  • You are suggesting reintroducing Stamp Duty on the payment of bills and bank transfers?


    I have a shares ISA and the ******** are already doing that, deducting additional tax on my savings!


    Andy B.