Some members of Australia's banking industry are fretting that there may be support for a version of the tax on financial transactions (or Tobin tax) popular with some critics of banks and favoured, notionally, by the political leaders of France and Germany. The Australian Bankers Association yesterday issued a media release arguing that "a global tax on financial transactions is not appropriate for Australia because our banks did not fail during the global financial crisis."Steven Munchenberg, chief executive of the ABA, said that "nations that are in favour of this type of tax are those where banks had real problems. "These countries want to tax their banks because they had to use taxpayer money to bail out the banks during the GFC, unlike Australia, Canada and other countries."This is a 'magic pudding tax' - it somehow raises billions of dollars without anyone supposedly paying much. The reality is that someone does have to pay, either through higher banking costs or through lower returns to superannuation funds and 'mum and dad' shareholders."It's not clear whether there will be much support for any version of a transactions tax at next week's Tax Forum in Canberra called by the Government.One supporter is Greens leader Bob Brown.