Administration February 3, 2003

SEC Hikes Transaction Fee

March 3, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Securities and Exchange Commission is raising the fee it charges for stock market transactions, due to the declining dollar volume in equities markets.

Reported by

Nevin E. Adams

Effective April 1, the SEC will charge $46.80 per $1 million from $25.20 at present.

Based on trading volume over the past fiscal quarter, the SEC has revised its estimated dollar volume in trading for fiscal 2003 to about $21.92 trillion, rather than the $33.16 trillion it estimated in September 2002. As a result, the SEC said it must raise its fee rate to reach the target offsetting collection amount of $849 million for fiscal 2003, according to an announcement posted on its web site.

Securities laws require each national securities exchange and the NASDAQ to pay the SEC fees based on an estimate of the aggregate dollar amount of sales on certain securities.