Number: RS22415 Title: Proposed Transaction Fee on Futures Contracts Authors: Mark Jickling, Government and Finance Division Abstract: The Bush Administration has revived a proposal, made by every President since Ronald Reagan but never enacted by Congress, to impose a user fee on trading in the futures markets in order to help fund the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Fees paid by other financial market participants already provide funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the federal banking regulators. To fund the CFTC at the level requested for FY2008 would require a fee of about three cents on each futures contract and option traded on the exchanges that the CFTC regulates. The futures industry argues that such a fee would be anticompetitive and could divert trading to foreign markets or to the unregulated over-the-counter market. However, it is not clear that a fee of this relatively modest size would have a significant impact on trading decisions in a market where the value of a single contract may rise or fall by hundreds or thousands of dollars in a day. This report summarizes the arguments for and against the proposal. Pages: 4 Date: April 2, 2007