FTS - French FinanzTransaktionsSteuer --- how PSEUDO can you go?

This new tax at 0.2 per cent of the transaction volume has to be paid starting August the 1st. Finally a small success against big Wall Street and all the bad hedge funds and evil banks. Finally F. Hollande shows some balls. Finally a politician making head against the markets.

Today I got notification about the details on this tax from one of my brokers (shame on the others). The tax applies:

• on any buy of french stocks (not trading in Paris/France, but companies registered in France)
• only if market cap is above EUR 1 bn (but this limit could change - currently 109 companies qualify)
• only for a transaction vs. money (read: no execution of options, share exchange, etc.)

Then my broker listed some exceptions, like an IPO, market making, etc. ... but several lines down the hammer did fall!

I am not sure I can translate this perfectly, but it goes like this: The tax has to be paid on the net buying/selling amount of one day. 

The example following shows clearly: if you buy 1.000 shares in the morning and sell 500 in the afternoon, you pay FTS only on 500 shares.


...

Lean back.

...

Take breath.

...

Stay calm.

...

This crappy socialist politicians tell us something about hitting the 'evil markets'. About 'bad' banks and hedge funds. About computer trading - high speed execution ... and how 'evil' all that is.
And then they initiate a tax that will NOT hit computer traders. A tax that will not even hit day traders? Something that will only hit Mom and Dad investing for their retirement?

How PSEUDO can you be? How much of a LIAR?

And it gets better:
- whereas my Swiss broker (swissquote) makes sure that i pay minimum transaction tax by netting the deals of a day
- my German borker tells me that he is not obliged to do so and would tansfer the tax to the French government anyways ...

So it depends on how nice your borker is whether you pay or do not pay the tax.


I stand aside - shocked!

PS:

And one final question: will this ever hit the news?