Robin Hood Tax campaign

International Tax Review is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Garden, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Robin Hood Tax campaign

Non-governmental organisation

Robin Hood Tax campaign

Just a couple of years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine non-governmental organisations campaigning for a financial transaction tax (FTT) as among the world’s greatest influences in tax.

But in January 2013, 11 EU member states were given the green light to implement the FTT. Now four of the five biggest economies in Europe are signed up to introducing what was once considered to be a radical, fringe idea.

“It was a historic moment for FTT campaigners around Europe who’d witnessed the tax move from political backwater to brink of reality,” says Simon Chouffot of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign (RHTC). “It was proof that member states can act to ensure banks pay for the damage they caused. The 11 countries involved make up 90% of eurozone GDP, 66% of EU GDP.”

The UK is notable in its opposition to the FTT. This makes the British-based RHTC - which has attracted the support of hundreds prominent business leaders, economists and celebrities from around the world - even more important as it continues to pile pressure on the government to join its European neighbours in adopting the FTT.

“In a year where banks were mired in some of the biggest scandals in the history of banking, the tax remains popular amongst the European electorate,” says Chouffot. “Bank lobbyists have been scrambled to fight a rearguard action - realising it is too late for the proposal to be rejected they are attempting to water down the FTT proposal. Campaigners have focused on ensuring this will not happen.”

Named after the English folk hero who took from the rich to give to the poor, it is the RHTC’s mission to see an FTT which taxes the banks to generate billions in revenue to fight climate change and relieve poverty in the UK and abroad.

“2013 was the year in which the FTT moved from being a great idea to a political reality,” says Chouffot. “The 11 states should be congratulated for standing up to the might of the financial sector and committing to implement a moderate and proven tax that will ensure the financial sector contributes towards the costs of the crisis they precipitated.”

Further reading

European Parliament bolsters FTT

Mayor Boris Johnson fails to understand FTT by calling on European banks to headquarter in London

Legal opinion means EU FTT to be further watered down but not derailed


The Global Tax 50 2013

« Previous

Akhilesh Ranjan

View the complete list

Next »

Pascal Saint-Amans

more across site & shared bottom lb ros

More from across our site

Reckitt Benckiser is to divest its Essential Home business, which includes more than 70 brands, to private equity firm Advent International
In the first of a new series of weekly opinion pieces, ITR Editor Tom Baker reflects on the OECD’s attempts to sanitise the US’s brazen pillar two negotiations
The threat of 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods coincides with new Brazilian legal powers to adopt retaliatory economic measures, local experts tell ITR
The country’s chancellor appears to have backtracked from previous pillar two scepticism; in other news, Donald Trump threatened Russia with 100% tariffs
In its latest G20 update, the OECD also revealed tense discussions with the US where the ‘significant threat’ of Section 899 was highlighted
The tax agency has increased compliance yield from wealthy individuals but cannot identify how much tax is paid by UK billionaires, the committee also claimed
Saffery cautioned that documentation requirements in new government proposals must be limited if medium-sized companies are not exempted from TP
The global minimum tax deal is not viable without US participation, Friedrich Merz has argued
Section 899 of the ‘one big beautiful’ bill would have spelled disaster for many international investors into the US, but following its shelving, attention turns to the fate of the OECD’s pillars
DLA Piper’s co-head of tax for the US and Latin America tells ITR about her fervent belief in equal access to the law, loving yoga, and paternal inspirations
Gift this article