Bank tax to rear its head at G20 summit: Kouchner

A controversial global bank tax that has split G20 nations will be brought up at the next meeting of the world’s leading economies, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday.

“The bank tax is mentioned everywhere, why wouldn’t it be brought up at the G20,” Kouchner told reporters at an economic conference in Montreal.

“It can’t just be prattle,” he commented. “It has to be implemented and the rules must be international so that nobody can escape it, but (in such a way that) it doesn’t hurt economic growth.”

G20 leaders are to meet in Toronto on June 26-27.

In preliminary talks in South Korea last week, G20 finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s leading nations agreed that further financial repairs, especially at banks, were needed to secure the recovery.

But they made no mention of the controversial global tax on banks that would fund future bailouts.

The global bank tax is supported by the International Monetary Fund, European powers and the United States. It is resisted by some developing nations plus Canada and Australia, who argue that they should not have to pay to clear up a mess they did not create.

Canada and Brazil, whose banking sectors emerged largely unscathed from the financial crisis, favor higher capital reserve requirements instead.