FDIC's Bair says not consulted on bank tax idea

Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Sheila Bair speaks at the Women's Conference 2009 in Long Beach, California October 27, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. bank regulator said on Tuesday she has not been consulted about an Obama administration idea to charge banks a fee to recoup some government bailout costs.

Sheila Bair, the powerful chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, said bank regulators have not been consulted about a potential tax, and she cannot comment on it.

Bair said the FDIC and other regulators would not be involved with any such plan because it involves the administration's tax policy.

However, she said that generally the FDIC supports pre-funding a "resolution fund" in the future that would be used to cover the costs of dismantling any insolvent, major financial firms.

"We don't want any bailouts, we want resolutions," Bair told reporters ahead of an FDIC board meeting.

A senior administration official said on Monday that President Barack Obama was considering including a fee on financial services companies in his upcoming budget to help recover some of the taxpayer money used to bail out banks during the financial crisis.

"While we have made great progress in recouping a large portion of the investment, consistent with the law, the president will propose a way to recoup additional funds, and one of the options is a levy on financial institutions," the official told Reuters.

(Reporting by Karey Wutkowski with additional reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by Neil Stempleman, Gerald E. McCormick and John Wallace)