Rejected petition Financial Transaction('Robin Hood') Tax

Basically, what we're after is a tax that raises billions of pounds annually from the financial sector, and which generates revenue to fight poverty worldwide and to tackle climate change.

A tiny tax of about 0.05% on transactions like stocks, bonds, foreign currency and derivatives. Could raise £250 billion a year globally. Well-tested, cheap to implement and hard to avoid.

In fact, there are already lots of different transaction taxes implemented by many countries, including in the UK. They all work on the same principle: taxing every transaction a very small amount. We think there should be a lot more of them, particularly in areas not yet taxed, like currency transactions and derivatives.

Importantly, transaction taxes are also good in that they would reduce the amount of the most risky transactions, the gambling which helped to trigger the financial crisis.