Global Tobin Tax
In 2000 a "pro-Tobin tax" NGO proposed that a tax could be used to fund international development: "In the face of increasing income disparity and social inequity, the Tobin Tax represents a rare opportunity to capture the enormous wealth of an untaxed sector and redirect it towards the public good. Conservative estimates show the tax could yield from $150-300 billion annually."[40] According to Dr. Stephen Spratt, "the revenues raised could be used for....international development objectives...such as meeting the Millennium Development Goals."[4][41][42]
At the UN September 2001 World Conference against Racism, when the issue of compensation for colonialism and slavery arose in the agenda, President Fidel Castro of Cuba advocated the Tobin Tax to address that issue. (According to Cliff Kincaid, Castro advocated it "specifically in order to generate U.S. financial reparations to the rest of the world," however a closer reading of Castro's speech shows that he never did mention "the rest of the world" as being recipients of revenue.) Castro cited holocaust reparations as a previously established precedent for the concept of reparations.[43][44] Castro also suggested that the United Nations be the administrator of this tax, stating the following:
"May the tax suggested by Nobel Prize Laureate James Tobin be imposed in a reasonable and effective way on the current speculative operations accounting for trillions of US dollars every 24 hours, then the United Nations, which cannot go on depending on meager, inadequate, and belated donations and charities, will have one trillion US dollars annually to save and develop the world. Given the seriousness and urgency of the existing problems, which have become a real hazard for the very survival of our species on the planet, that is what would actually be needed before it is too late."[43]
Member countries have not given the UN a mandate to seek a global financial tax. On March 6, 2006, US Congressman Dr Ron Paul stated: "The United Nations remains determined to rob from wealthy countries and, after taking a big cut for itself, send what’s left to the poor countries. Of course, most of this money will go to the very dictators whose reckless policies have impoverished their citizens. The UN global tax plan...resurrects the long-held dream of the 'Tobin Tax'. A dangerous precedent would be set, however: the idea that the UN possesses legitimate taxing authority to fund its operations."[45]
