I 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2923 
To impose a tax on certain trading transactions to invest in our families 
and communities, improve our infrastructure and our environment, 
strengthen our financial security, expand opportunity and reduce market 
volatility. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 22, 2019 
Ms. LEE of California (for herself, Ms. NORTON, Mr. TAKANO, Mr. KHANNA, 
Mr. COHEN, Ms. JAYAPAL, Ms. DELAURO, Ms. OMAR, Mr. MCGOVERN, 
Mr. HUFFMAN, Mr. POCAN, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. PIN-
GREE, Mr. LOWENTHAL, Ms. GABBARD, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. 
GARAMENDI, and Mr. HASTINGS) introduced the following bill; which was 
referred to the Committee on Ways and Means 
A BILL 
To impose a tax on certain trading transactions to invest 
in our families and communities, improve our infrastruc-
ture and our environment, strengthen our financial secu-
rity, expand opportunity and reduce market volatility. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Inclusive Prosperity 
Act of 2019’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The global financial crisis cost Americans 
$19 trillion in lost wealth. 
(2) The global financial crisis was caused by fi-
nancial firms taking great financial risks without 
disclosing those risks to their investors or their regu-
lators, and by regulatory failures to adequately po-
lice the financial services markets for crime, unfair 
or deceptive practices, fraud, lack of transparency, 
and mismanagement. 
(3) Deceptive, illegal, and speculative financial 
practices have harmed public confidence in the integ-
rity and fairness of many United States financial in-
stitutions, and threaten the basic strengths of the 
United States economic system. 
(4) American citizens provided the money to 
stabilize the financial sector, making $700 billion 
available to 800 financial institutions, automakers, 
and insurance companies. 
(5) The global financial crisis, along with the 
wars, unabated and unaddressed climate change, 
unsustainable tax cuts, and a continuing unemploy-
ment crisis, if unaddressed, will deprive a generation 
of a meaningful role in the larger economy. 
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(6) Nurses, teachers, public safety officers, and 
other public sector workers have faced drastic fund-
ing cuts, harming our long-term public safety and 
prospects for economic growth. 
(7) Extreme weather events rooted in climate 
change, including flood, drought, fire, super storms 
like Sandy, as well as ‘‘slow-onset’’ events like sea 
level rise, are wreaking havoc in the United States 
and across the globe resulting in climate change im-
pacts that jeopardize the lives and livelihoods of 
Americans, causing large-scale food and energy inse-
curity in developing countries, and extolling untold 
economic costs. 
(8) According to economists, a small tax on 
transfer of ownership of every financial trade could 
generate hundreds of billions annually in revenue, 
which when invested could help create millions of 
good-paying jobs in both the public and private sec-
tors every year, as well as provide urgently needed 
funding for programs to combat climate change and 
address global health and development issues. 
(9) A transactions tax will help limit high-fre-
quency trading which may be as high as 70 percent 
of the market and results in declining market sta-
bility through extreme price volatility, distorted mar-
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ket prices, and structural vulnerability to speculation 
far in excess of the liquidity needs of commercial 
hedgers. 
(10) A securities transfer tax would have a neg-
ligible impact on the average investor. 
(11) The United States had a transfer tax from 
1914 to 1966: The Revenue Act of 1914 (Act of 
Oct. 22, 1914 (ch. 331, 38 Stat. 745)) levied a 0.02 
percent tax on all sales or transfers of stock which 
was doubled in 1932 to help overcome the budgetary 
challenges during the Great Depression. 
(12) Forty nations have or have had some form 
of a financial transactions tax; it is endorsed by 
more than 1,000 economists; and 10 European 
countries are moving forward on implementing a co-
ordinated financial transactions tax after European 
Union finance ministers signaled approval in Janu-
ary 2013. 
(13) Revenue generated by this tax could be 
available to— 
(A) create a more dynamic economy and 
enhance economic opportunity by providing free 
college education and lessening student debt; 
(B) strengthen financial security and ex-
pand opportunity for low- and moderate-income 
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families, including strengthening the social safe-
ty net and expanding resources for child care, 
Social Security, and savings incentives; 
(C) expand resources for State and Fed-
eral investments that protect our health and en-
vironment, investing in water and wastewater 
infrastructure, rebuild our crumbling physical 
infrastructure, and create good paying jobs 
by— 
(i) expanding and improving Medicare 
and Medicaid; 
(ii) investing in job training, public 
sector jobs, and green jobs; 
(iii) providing housing assistance to 
low-income households; 
(iv) investing in transportation includ-
ing public mass transit and an infrastruc-
ture bank that promotes environmentally 
responsible domestic manufacturing and 
construction industries; and 
(v) protecting our environment and 
building a clean energy economy, including 
efforts to combat climate change and build 
resilience to its effects in the United States 
and in developing countries; and 
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