Deutsche's Ackermann says Germany offers banks a 'comparative advantage'

The United Kingdom announced last Wednesday that it would pose a one-time 50% tax on bonuses of more than 25,000 pounds ($40,800), Bloomberg News reported. And last Thursday France President Nicolas Sarkozy said that France will follow suit.

Meanwhile, in the United States, aside from financial institutions that received government bailout money, so far Congress has not imposed any limits on bonuses, and neither has it passed a special tax on bonuses. However, if the House's financial services reform bill becomes law, it would require financial firms with $1 billion in assets to disclose to federal regulators any incentive-based compensation structures. Federal regulators would then be authorized to ban any inappropriate or risky compensation practices.

Economic Analysis: Indeed, Germany's mostly self-regulated system could look appealing to banks/bankers in the United Kingdom and France, which speaks to the need for coordinated, comparable tax rates/bonus structures. Further, in addition to international coordination, nations also need to assess some type of tax on others who benefited from the pseudo-boom in the mortgage market: ratings agencies, and mortgage brokers, among others.