- Palley, 2000 Pollin, Palley and Baker (2000) emphasize that transaction taxes "have clearly not prevented the efficient functioning of these markets. " The Spahn tax According to Paul Bernd Spahn in 1995, "Analysis has shown that the Tobin tax as originally proposed is not viable and should be laid aside for good." Special drawing rights On September 19, 2001, retired speculator George Soros put forward a proposal based on the IMF's existing special drawing rights (SDRs) mechanism. In Soros' scheme, rich countries would pledge SDRs (which are denominated as a basket of multiple 'hard' currencies) for the purpose of providing international assistance. Soros was not necessarily dismissing the Tobin tax idea. He stated, "I think there is a case for a Tobin tax ... (but) it is not at all clear to me that a Tobin tax would reduce volatility in the currency markets. It is true that it may discourage currency speculation but it would also reduce the liquidity of the marketplace." In this Soros appeared to agree with the Chicago School. Scope of the Tobin concept The term "Tobin tax" has sometimes been used interchangeably with a specific currency transaction tax (CTT) in the manner of Tobin's original idea, and other times it has been used interchangeably with the various different ideas of a more general financial transaction tax (FTT). In both cases, the various ideas proposed have included both national and multinational concepts. Examples of associating Tobin's tax with these: April 2001: December 2009: Support and opposition Tobin tax proposals and implementations It was originally assumed that the Tobin tax would require multilateral implementation, since one country acting alone would find it very difficult to implement this tax. Many people have therefore argued that it would be best implemented by an international institution. It has been proposed that having the United Nations manage a Tobin tax would solve this problem and would give the UN a large source of funding independent from donations by participating states. However, there have also been initiatives of national dimension about the tax. (This is in addition to the many countries that have foreign exchange controls.) Whilst finding some support in countries with strong left-wing political movements such as France and Latin America, the Tobin tax proposal came under much criticism from economists and governments, especially those with liberal markets and a large international banking sector, who said it would be