Bank tax

A bank tax, or a bank levy, is a tax on banks which was discussed in the context of the financial crisis of 2007–08. The bank tax is levied on the capital at risk of financial institutions, excluding federally insured deposits, with the aim of discouraging banks from taking unnecessary risks. The bank tax is levied on a limited number of sophisticated taxpayers and is not especially difficult to understand. It can be used as a counterbalance to the various ways in which banks are currently subsidized by the tax system, such as the ability to subtract bad loan reserves, delay tax on interest received abroad, and buy other banks and use their losses to offset future income. In other words, the bank tax is a small reimbursement of taxpayer funds used to bail out major banks after the 2008 financial crisis, and it is carefully structured to target only certain institutions that are considered "too big to fail."^[1]

On 16 April 2010, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put forward three possible options to deal with the crisis, which were presented in response to an earlier request of the G20 leaders, at the September 2009 G20 Pittsburgh summit, for an investigative report on options to deal with the crisis.^[2] The IMF opted in favour of the "financial stability contribution" (FSC) option, which many media have referred to as a "bank tax". Both before and after that IMF report, there was considerable debate among national leaders as to whether such a "bank tax" should be global or semi-global, or whether it should be applied only in certain nations.