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Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

theguardian.com

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Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#61

Post by zmnd »

tensor wrote: post #28
madballster wrote: post #21

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

Unfortunately the old American disease of not ensuring competition and instead passing regulation ensuring monopolies stay in power means the "problem" is not actual solved, and is in fact made worse.

> The US is home to over 4,700 FDIC-insured banks. It’s not far off from the EU, which has 5,171, but stop and consider that the EU consists of 27 countries. The UK currently has 365 banks, and Canada has 83

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#62

Post by barbazoo »

madballster wrote: post #21

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

> If one wants free enterprise and reap its benefits one has to allow high profits for companies and see if competition takes care of the "problem".

I sometimes wonder if perhaps other parts of the world have a different vision of how to run their economy. Surely "free enterprise" isn't a universal rule and certainly not the way it is conducted in North America. Maybe they're just doing things differently?

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#63

Post by Hamcha »

madballster wrote: post #21

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

> If one wants free enterprise and reap its benefits one has to allow high profits for companies and see if competition takes care of the "problem"

One must just glance at the US to see what happens, the high profits get used to lobby politicians to make competition impossible, thus the problem doesn't get solved and becomes the status quo.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#64

Post by hello_moto »

> If one wants free enterprise and reap its benefits one has to allow high profits for companies and see if competition takes care of the "problem".

Max profits for BigCo (Bank, the rest, same) and lower the wages for the people seem to be the M.O. these days.

I'd love to see higher Corp tax that is spread to people. Force higher tax and give tax break to force them spread their profit to their employers would be one example that is beneficial for everyone.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#65

Post by zdw »

jntvjnvutnuvt wrote: post #60
toyg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> see if competition takes care of the "problem". We have seen: for industries with big capital requirements or heavy regulatory frameworks (enacted for everyone's safety), it just doesn't .

Which industries with big capital requirements don't have competitors?

Anything with a natural monopoly.

Utilities (water, electric, telephony/cable/data services) or where having two of something makes no sense given physical limitations (Transportation sector, etc.)

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#66

Post by hello_moto »

gdsdfe wrote: post #4

Canada need to do the same!

Canada leaders are all cowards. All of them. They all sell promises of lowering costs for the people but every single policy that they created have always driven everything up.

Grocery monopoly and corp profits.

Housing "affordability" means "lowering requirements, giving tax break for first time buyer" ...

It's not the kind of "Affordability for the people" that one expect.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#67

Post by bko »

webdood90 wrote: post #40
madballster wrote: post #21

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

I didn't think it was possible but banking shills apparently exist > If one wants free enterprise and reap its benefits who wants this from banking??? > one has to allow high profits for companies and see if competition takes care of the "problem" ah, yes - we've seen this work so many times before!

I don't know. I kind of like competition in banking. I like free checking, ATM fee reimbursement, better customer service, better websites and apps, better alerting etc.

You get that through competition for my deposits.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#68

Post by brmgb »

flavius29663 wrote: post #20
koolba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are no windfall profits during boom times, are you equally onboard with subsidies during lean times? If the banks are doing something predatory then that behavior should be stopped. Not being able to define it and then seizing an arbitrary portion of the profits isn’t going to stop it in the future. Hell, since profit is after expense, they can increase CEO salaries to reduce it and be taxed less! Plus if th…

> are you equally onboard with subsidies during lean times? The problem is that these companies do receive subsidies during lean times, in both energy and banking fields, whether you want it or not. They are too important to be let to fail, and the governments will either subsidize them, bail them out or just plain nationalize them. In the case of Greece banking crisis, they nationalized the losses of foreign banks..…

At this point, the EU has the worst of both a free market based economy and a planned one. Profits goes to corporate owners when they exist and losses are taken up by the general public through subsidies. It's very comfy for our corporate overlords and the old generation who could afford to become shareholders in these companies when public policies actually helped them but it's a raw deal for the rest of us. Sadly, old people are the one who still vote and put our governments in place so I don't expect things to ever get better. I guess it's doomed to happen when the median age of your country hits 45.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#69

Post by gruez »

rightbyte wrote: post #49
concinds wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption, that if without these extra taxes, more banks would be created and the industry would become less concentrated, seems untrue. The banking industry seems to be becoming hugely concentrated in every Western country, regardless of windfall taxes.

Maybe the tax could be progressive to help smaller players? I dunno why only wage tax is progressively taxed.

>I dunno why only wage tax is progressively taxed.

Companies are just groups of people. Why should a group of 100 people get taxed more than a group of 100,000 people? Progressive rates on wages make sense because it's applied to each person individually.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#70

Post by jntvjnvutnuvt »

webdood90 wrote: post #40
madballster wrote: post #21

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

I didn't think it was possible but banking shills apparently exist > If one wants free enterprise and reap its benefits who wants this from banking??? > one has to allow high profits for companies and see if competition takes care of the "problem" ah, yes - we've seen this work so many times before!

We have seen that work many times actually if you know anything about economics and capitalism.
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