Ireland will not challenge 'Robin Hood tax'

Ireland’s Finance Minister, Michael Noonan has confirmed the country won’t join the UK’s legal challenge to a ‘Robin Hood tax’ backed by Germany and France but rejected by many other EU members.
 
Mr Noonan said this week that the planned Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) now appears likely to look much like the Stamp Duty charged in Ireland and the UK on share purchases, following a recent meeting of European Finance Ministers in Brussels.
 
The idea behind the levy was raised by German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and the then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy back in 2011, promoting it as a way to ensure the financial sector contributed to the cost of resolving Europe’s critical financial situation.
 
Ministers from 11 of the 28 EU member states who have signed up to a common FTT have confirmed their intentions to introduce the new charge from 1^st January 2016, at the latest.
 
UK Chancellor, George Osborne and Sweden’s Finance Minister, Anders Borg both strongly oppose the planned tax and could yet revive a legal challenge to block it.
 
Borg was very critical of the project, calling at a “very inefficient and costly tax”. Meanwhile, Mr Osborne boldly told ministers it was “a tax on jobs… a tax on people’s pensions”.
 
However, Noonan has admitted Ireland has no plans to join any efforts to block FTT.
 
“We didn’t get any detail but from the information we have we are quite happy to let the group who want to implement the tax go ahead and implement it for their countries,” said Noonan.
 
“There were issues raised (at the EU ministers’ meeting) about ensuring countries not participating were fully informed about any unintended consequences there might be of the impact of a tax crossing state boundaries from the countries implementing it.
 
“There were absolute commitments that everybody would be fully informed.”

Date published 8 May 2014 | Last updated 8 May 2014