Objections to EU transaction tax

Ireland was among a number of countries blocking an EU-wide financial transaction tax worth an estimated €57bn a year, but said it would not stand in the way of a countries going ahead with it.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan said that they could object to this option also if they felt it would adversely the single market, and he warned that it could create a dangerous precedent allowing the EU to interfere with a country’s control over its taxation.

Germany has said it will go ahead with plans for the tax and believed it had at least nine countries, the number required, to go ahead using enhanced co-operation procedures to draw up a common scheme to tax financial transactions, mainly the sale of shares and derivatives.