opposed to consumption taxes paid by consumers. The most frequently discussed versions of a currency transaction tax are the Tobin tax, Edgar L. Feige's Automated Payment Transaction tax and Spahn tax. The Automated Payment Transaction tax requires that all transactions be taxed regardless of the means of payment. As such, it proposes a unique tax on currency transactions collected at the time currency leaves or enters the banking system. Since each transaction mediated by currency can not be directly taxed, the APT tax proposes a brokerage fee on currency deposits and withdrawals that is some multiple of the flat transaction tax rate applied to all payments made via electronic payments mechanisms. Tobin tax In 1972 the economist James Tobin proposed a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. The so-called Tobin tax is intended to put a penalty on short-term financial round-trip excursions into another currency. Tobin suggested his currency transaction tax in 1972 in his Janeway Lectures at Princeton, shortly after the Bretton Woods system effectively ended. In 2001, James Tobin looked back at the 1994 Mexican peso crisis, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the 1998 Russian financial crisis, and said: "[My proposed] tax [idea] on foreign exchange transactions... dissuades speculators as many investors invest their money in foreign exchange on a very short-term basis. If this money is suddenly withdrawn, countries have to drastically increase interest rates for their currency to still be attractive. But high interest is often disastrous for a national economy, as the nineties' crises in Mexico, South East Asia and Russia have proven...." It is intended to put a penalty on short-term financial round-trip excursions into another currency Spahn tax Paul Bernd Spahn opposed the original form of a Tobin Tax in a Working Paper International Financial Flows and Transactions Taxes: Survey and Options, concluding "...the original Tobin tax is not viable. First, it is virtually impossible to distinguish between normal liquidity trading and speculative noise trading. If the tax is generally applied at high rates, it will severely impair financial operations and create international liquidity problems, especially if derivatives are taxed as well." However, on 16 June 1995 Spahn suggested that "Most of the difficulties of the Tobin tax could be resolved, possibly with a two-tier rate structure consisting of a low-rate financial transactions tax and an exchange surcharge at prohibitive rates." This new form of tax, the Spahn