It must be election year in Europe as the "tobin Tax "  has yet again appeared on our radars  ? 

James Tobin in the early seventies tried in vain to introduce this idea and most governments since have attempted  to implement it as seeing the £££££$$$$ falling into their laps , luckily poiliticans are not businessmen/women . 

  Back in 2013/14 both France and Italy attempted to introduce a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT ) into their system BUT decided to use "honesty boxes "  to collect their bounties  , strangely instead of the millions promised they collected pennies and of course the liquidity , volume and business vanished and traded elsewhere !  Sweden  learnt their lesson overnight decades ago , they lost 70% over their trade overnight .

 However if the market has to satisfy these government demands we do  have a very suitable alternative .. .

We can  finally introduce a financial CANCELLATION  trading tax  ? The market has suffered a false liquidity issue over the last decade with certain members cancelling over 90% of their orders with flashing liquidity and spoofing etc , which exchanges have been guilty of protecting  which has fractured the marketplace . Therefore this Financial Cancellation Transaction Tax (FCTT) will both protect the real investor and reduce the powers of the "ghost " liquidity providers . A holding period of x seconds would be an acceptable non cancelled order   ? Folks will argue that spreads will widen BUT algos will quickly rebrand and obviously cancel far less orders , governments will also feel they have achieved their objective in supplying  their "Robin Hood tax " even though their returns will again be pennies rather than notes !