"I Can't Get No Satisfaction..."

"...if I can't raise the tax burden. Heyheyhey that's what I say."

Sometimes that is what comes to my mind when I hear raising taxes is the answer-to-all-problems. That seems also to be the case regarding the tax on financial transactions.

Facts:

1. The collected tax has to come from somewhere, those imposed will charge it to the next party in the chain ending up that the consumer will have to pay, in the end. The expectations are 10th of billions of EUR in tax revenues. From where shall that be taken and for what will it be used? 

2. Implementation of a tax on financial transactions in Sweden in the 1980-ties was a severe failure and therefore abolished in only a few years

3. Volatility will increase since market liquidity will decrease. I was a bond dealer in Sweden at the time we had the tax. The Reuter screens stopped blinking overnight and each large trading post made the price jump up or down when market makers pushed it like a hot potato onto each other

4. There is a dispute among different country leadership risking legal problems

5. Market liquidity will decrease making it more costly and difficult hedging commercial exposure from corporates

6. Financial transactions will move out of the EUR area learnt from Swedish empirical evidence. Is that something we will benefit from at this stage?

What shall we, the corporates do, to make the EU leadership understand the consequences on the real economy of their decisions?