Bank tax
March 31, 2010
Germany's current coalition government has announced plans to create a controversial new bank tax in hopes of averting future financial crises.
According to the plans, credit institutions will be required to deposit money into a stabilization fund, so that in the event of a crisis the banking industry can bail itself out.
The opposition fears that the banks will pass their costs on to customers in the form of higher fees and deduct the required contribution from their taxes.
Partnership with France
Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stressed that steps to stabilize the financial market would be coordinated closely with France, in hopes that the ideas will be adopted by other major industrial and emerging countries. His French counterpart Christine Lagarde also participated in the Berlin meeting of the cabinet.
Drafting of the legislation is just beginning and the exact language of the bill likely won't be available until July. The Cabinet also endorsed additional benchmarks for stricter regulation of financial markets, including doubling the period of accountability for bank managers from five years to ten years.
smh/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Matt Hermann