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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing a Tobin Tax in Thailand. For those who are asking themselves what the heck is a Tobin Tax, well let's jump into it. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Reuters that is reuters.com, the article is titled: Thailand approves transaction tax on securities trades - deputy FinMin. Quoting directly: Thailand's Cabinet on Tuesday approved a financial transaction tax on securities trades on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, ending a three-decade waiver, the country's Deputy Finance Minister said on Tuesday. Authorities will set the tax at 0.055% in the first year and then 0.11%, a Ministry Official told Reuters." Quoting further: "The tax is like a Tobin tax applied on financial transactions akin to those in India and Taiwan." 

Yeah, so it is sort of a transactional tax if you will, kind of think of it like a sales tax almost, similar to the sales tax I guess, on any transaction occurring, financial transaction occurring presumably on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Now I have read about this kind of tangentially, finance isn't my bailiwick per se, but it's my understanding this is kind of a controversial thing in sort of the global financial sector insofar as there is oftentimes a little bit of ambivalence, let's call it that, I am being kind of economical there with the notion of a tax on each and every transaction. 

I can see both sides of the argument on this. On the one side there is the sort of well you want their free market, you want it to run, if people are scared of being taxed on a transaction it may warp the market. Okay, fair enough. At the same time, my counter to that is look at the end of the day, Limited Companies derive their limited liability status from essentially sort of delegated sovereign immunity if you will from whatever country they are located in and incorporated in so you kind of forfeit, in my opinion you kind of forfeit your ability to say "hey we should be able to do whatever we want." Well no, there are rules, there are regulations. Meanwhile, I think especially right now I can definitely see the argument where the Thai Government is saying look we need as much revenue as we can get. We have had two and a half years of essentially just economic decimation, especially of certain sectors of the economy, especially sectors of the economy that employ a number of people, so there is an argument to be made in favour of it. I don't know where I really stand on this. In fact probably I am pretty neutral overall. That being said it looks like this is going to be coming down; I think we are going to see it beginning next year in 2023, so be advised and so be aware if you will, be aware that this new Tobin Tax is going to be coming down the pike.