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Vatican announces support for Robin Hood Tax

"Such a taxation would be very useful to promote global and sustainable development according to principles of social justice and solidarity". 

photo of Cardinal Peter Turkson Vatican City (25 Oct. 2011) - Supporters for the implementation of a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) or Robin Hood Tax are welcoming the announcement that the Vatican has endorsed the proposal.

During a press conference in the Vatican City Cardinal Peter Turkson (head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department), Monsignor Mario Toso and Professor Leonardo Becchetti (Second University of Rome) added the Catholic Church to the growing number of voices calling for a FTT. It was presented as part of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace note "The International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority."

The Vatican, among other proposals for the global economy, supports the proposal of an international tax on financial dealings. It should be made, according to the document, through fair rates, but modulated, with costs proportioned to the complexity of operations, especially of those carried out on the 'secondary' market.

"Such a taxation would be very useful to promote global and sustainable development according to principles of social justice and solidarity; and could contribute to establish a world reserve to support the economies of the countries hit by crisis and to the regeneration of their monetary and financial systems."

The note also says that the "economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence."

"In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale," it said, saying that the global economy needed an "ethic of solidarity" among rich and poor nations.

"If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid."

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