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This summer, the French government enacted a tax on secondary market trading in American Depository Receipts (ADR) of French companies that applies to transactions between US investors wholly within the US. France claims jurisdiction on the grounds that ADRs are designed to approximate the value of underlying French stocks, notwithstanding a long-standing provision in our income tax treaty with France that addresses extraterritorial stock transaction taxes.
Elsewhere in Europe, the EU is moving ahead with an unprecedented financial transaction tax proposal that could also be imposed here in the US and around the world if EU legislators follow a draft from Brussels.
If other countries wish to impose a tax that only harms economic growth and market activity within their own borders that is their choice. They should not attempt to tax US-based products sold and traded solely in the US as if these transactions were taking place in Paris or Berlin or Madrid. President Obama should protect US companies, investors and markets from these kind of invasive FTTs, just as he has with this new carbon tax.