Osborne on Tobin tax: ‘a big tax on pensioners’

Chancellor George Osborne has warned that bankers would find a way of avoiding an EU financial transaction tax (FTT) and it would in fact hit pensioners the hardest.

Speaking at a meeting in Brussels yesterday Osborne warned that a levy on financial transactions, or Tobin tax, would be passed onto pension funds and schemes.

"There is not a single banker in this world that is going to pay this tax. There are no banks that are going to pay this tax,” Osborne said. “The people who will pay this tax are pensioners. So if you want to go and introduce a big tax on pensioners, that is the end result. But at least be honest about who pays this tax.”

This follows a letter from the Dutch Algemene Pensioen Groep - one of the largest administrators of group pension schemes - warning that an FTT would be a ‘tax on current and future retirees’.

The letter said it would hit ordinary pension savers hard, resulting in pensioners paying for the FTT through reductions in the value of their pensions.

“Pension savers and investors could end up shouldering an unfair share of the burden of the FTT,” it said.

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