At a meeting with Commonwealth leaders on 27th November 2009, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was to suggest the introduction of a tax for banks, the Tobin Tax. The prime minister’s idea was that this tax should be on a global level, meaning that all commonwealth countries should adopt the tax for all financial institutions, including banks.
Earlier in November 2009, Gordon Brown put the tax idea to Tim Geithner, the US treasury secretary, but he dismissed the idea, even though the US government spent millions bailing out Wall Street during 2009.
Although tax is not the only thing each government has been looking at, and it’s not known what area would be taxed, Insurance has also been suggested. Governments have finally realised that something needs to be done so huge government bail-outs to financial institutions don’t happen again in the future.
