구제금융을 받은 은행들에 대한 세금은 정당할까?

오늘 아고라를 보다가, 오바마가 구제금융을 받고서도 연말에 대규모 보너스 잔치를 연 거대 금융사들에 대해서 거액의 세금을 물리겠다는 기사를 읽고나서 든 궁금증입니다.

제가 알기로 대충... 메릴린치나 제이피모건 같은 회사들은 이미 작년에 받았던 구제금융을 모두 되갚은걸로 알고 있었거든요. 물론 뭐.. 그렇게 몇달전에 정말.. 장난아닌 거액의 세금을 이용해서 어려움에서 벗어난 회사들이 거액의 보너스 잔치를 여는건 좀... 뭔가 잘못된듯 싶은 생각은 들지만.. 여기에 '세금폭탄'을 때리는 건 좀 감정적인거 아니냐.. 하는 생각이 들었던거죠.

뉴욕타임즈를 들어가서 읽어보니 좀 이해가 되더군요.

이 회사들은 자기들이 받은 구제 금융은 모두 상환했지만, 문제는 GM, 크라이슬러, AIG에 들어간 구제금융은 회수가 막막해 보이는 상황입니다. 그런데, 위에서 보너스 잔치를 벌인 많은 금융사들은 AIG에 투입된 구제금융에서 약 60조에 해당되는 금액을 받았다고 합니다. AIG와 거래하다가 문제가 생긴 돈에 대해서 세금으로 되돌려 받은것이죠. 또... GM이나 크라이슬러 같은 회사에 들어간 구제금융도 간접적으로는 이와 같은 대형금융사에게 도움이 되는 돈이겠죠. 자기들이 사업을 하고 있는 발판 자체가세금으로 유지되고 있다고 볼 수가 있는 상황인듯 합니다.

하지만.. 이들은 자신들이 받은 구제금융을 모두 갚았다는 이유로.. 크림을 걷어가듯이 자기들만 돈잔치를 벌이고 있으니, 이에 대해 미국 국민들이나 오바마가 분노하는 것은 당연하다고 볼 수 있겠습니다. 남의 나라 이야기이기는 하지만 좀 통쾌하기는 합니다. IMF때 과도한 차입금으로 위기를 제공했던 제벌이나 금융사들은 망하고 통폐합이 되었으니 벌을 받았다고 볼 수 있을까요..

아래는 원문입니다.

WASHINGTON — President Obama laid down his proposal for a new tax on the nation’s largest financial institutions on Thursday, saying he wanted “to recover every single dime the American people are owed” for bailing out the economy.

With both anti-Wall Street sentiment and the budget deficit running high, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill welcomed the proposal, which could ultimately raise up to $117 billion to cover projected bailout losses. Republicans were uncharacteristically silent, their instinctive opposition to tax increases apparently checked by their fear of defending big bankers. And the financial industry lobby seemed splintered, with small community banks happily exempted.

The biggest question, then, might be whether liberals in Mr. Obama’s own party would press him to go even further than he and Democratic moderates wanted to go. About the same time that the president was announcing his plan at the White House, a group of House Democrats held a news conference to call for a 50 percent tax on bonuses exceeding $50,000 at banks that took bailout money.

The administration has opposed taxing bonuses in the past, saying shareholders should determine corporate pay policies. Mr. Obama, in his remarks, suggested that his proposal to tax some of banks’ assets could have the same effect, by forcing them to shrink the size of their bonuses in turn.

Flanked by his economic advisers at the White House, Mr. Obama spoke in some of his harshest language to date about the resurgent financial industry.

“We’re already hearing a hue and cry from Wall Street suggesting that this proposed fee is not only unwelcome but unfair,” he said. “That by some twisted logic it is more appropriate for the American people to bear the cost of the bailout rather than the industry that benefited from it, even though these executives are out there giving themselves huge bonuses.”

Mr. Obama continued, “What I say to these executives is this: Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibilities” — including by rolling back bonuses.

The proposed tax would apply to bank, thrift and insurance companies with more than $50 billion in assets and would start after June 30. It would not apply to certain holdings, like customers’ insured savings, but to assets in risk-taking operations. The levy would raise an estimated $90 billion over 10 years, according to the White House.

But it would remain in force longer if all losses to the bailout fund, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, were not recovered after a decade. The Treasury now projects that the losses from the $700 billion loan program, which was created in October 2008, could reach $117 billion, about a third of the loss that it projected last summer — an improved forecast that reflected the renewed strength on Wall Street.

The White House said that collecting $117 billion would take about 12 years, but Treasury officials said losses were likely to be smaller. Still, with postrecession deficits at levels unseen since World War II and Wall Street never broadly popular, the pressure on a future president and Congress to keep the tax in place is likely to be substantial. Administration officials did not outline any provision for having the tax expire once all the money is recouped.

Big banks object that most of them already have repaid the government with interest. The administration, anticipating that argument, called its tax a “financial crisis responsibility fee” aimed at those institutions whose risk-taking caused the problem in the first place.

The losses from the bailout fund are expected from money paid to rescue Chrysler and General Motors and the insurance giant American International Group, and from a program to help homeowners avert foreclosures. But big banks shared in the A.I.G. bailout, splitting about $60 billion to receive full repayment for their financial trades with the company.

Mr. Obama’s economic team began seeking a bank fee last August, even as the administration — and in particular the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner — was being attacked by critics on the left and right as too cozy with Wall Street. Criticism picked up last year after Mr. Geithner opposed an effort by the European Union to impose a global tax on financial transactions.

Mr. Geithner said such a tax would be passed through to customers. The administration now argues that big banks will not be able to pass on the costs of its levy without risking a loss of market share to rivals that are not subject to the tax.

The proposal, which Mr. Obama will include in his budget in February, would require Congress’s approval.
Democrats said the tax had good prospects in a midterm election year. The White House believes Republicans are in a box, unable to oppose the tax without being cast as allies of fat-cat bankers. Also, the 2008 bailout program is less popular among Republican voters than among Democrats, polls show; the issue helped give rise to the conservative Tea Party Movement.

The delays inherent in the legislative process could give the banking lobby time to muster formidable opposition, especially in the Senate — just as the industry has been able to stall and weaken the administration’s initiative to tighten regulation of the financial system.

But in such fights, smaller community banks are the more influential force, given their presence in nearly every lawmaker’s district. By exempting smaller banks from the tax, the administration divided the industry lobby and left less popular big banks on their own.

Some bankers acknowledged that the tax might be acceptable if it headed off tougher measures, like a bonus tax. It also would not have a huge impact on the biggest firms’ bottom lines. Still, lobbyists are mobilizing.

“This tax is strictly political,” said Steve Bartlett, chief executive of the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents the largest banking, insurance and investment companies.

The tax would apply to about 50 companies and would impose the greatest burden on firms that rely less on customer deposits. Citigroup could face a $2.2 billion annual assessment, according to an analysis by Concept Capital in Washington; JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America might each pay close to $2 billion. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would also pay similarly high assessments.

“The irony is it hurts the weaker banks more than the stronger banks,” said Meredith Whitney, a prominent financial services analyst. “To think that it won’t come out of consumers and businesses is mistaken.”

The tax would amount to about $1.5 million for every $1 billion in bank assets subject to the fee. It would apply to all of a company’s assets except for what is known as a bank’s Tier 1 capital, including common stock, or its insured deposits from savers, for which banks already pay a fee to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.