Ed Royce: “when Congress created the current fee structure for securities transactions, the intent there was to ensure that the…”

“when Congress created the current fee structure for securities transactions, the intent there was to ensure that the regulated community would pay for the cost of their regulation, and basically due to a rising stock market and due to unprecedented trading volume the government is now collecting fees that greatly exceed the operating budget of the SEC; in fact, by some six times greater than that operating budget. What happens to this revenue? Well, it is deposited into the U.S. Treasury and it is used for other Federal programs. What would be the benefit of eliminating the tax overcharge? Well, by reducing the transaction fees paid by investors each time they sell a stock, by reducing the registration fees, then this would eliminate basically a tax on equity transactions. This is a tax felt by everyone who invests in mutual funds. This is a tax felt by everyone in retirement accounts and, as we know, Mr. Speaker, it is a majority of Americans.”