The study investigates the effects of the implementation of the financial transaction tax (FTT) as conceptualised by the European
Commission (EC) in a group of 11 EU countries. It is shown that the objections against this concept – recently put forward
by Goldman Sachs and other banks heavily engaged in short-term trading – suffer from serious methodological flaws. Particular
attention ist given to the potential use of London subsidiaries of financial institutions established in participating countries
as vehicle for tax evasion. If London subsidiaries are treated as part of their parent company, overall FTT revenues of the
11 FTT countries are estimated at 65.8 billion €, more than estimated by the EC for the EU 27 as a whole. Roughly one quarter
of these revenues would stem from transactions in North America and Asia. If London subsidiaries are treated as British financial
institutions, tax revenues would amount to only 28.3 billion €. This difference is particularly great for those countries
which operate to a significant extent through big subsidiaries in London like Germany and France.