Chancellor failing to cancel ‘tax giveaway’ to banks, says Labour. What would YOU do?
George Osborne announced cuts to the levy in 2015 after big banks threatened to move their headquarters outside the UK [Image: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty].
Those of us who didn’t vote Conservative and were penalised by their punitive cuts can’t threaten to leave the UK in the same way as these banks, can we?
If we did, I think the Tories might dig out some pretty nasty ways of keeping us in our place!
But they placate the banks.
My personal preference would have been to tell them to go – but that all their UK-based assets, at the time of their announcement, were now the property of the Crown, to be divided up according to the needs of the British people.
They would be allowed to go, but the economic benefits they had created for the UK must stay.
I know what you’re thinking: “Dream on”. It is a dream – but only because politicians like Messrs Osborne and Hammond are the poodles of private enterprise.
How would you counter such ultimatums by big, possibly multinational, firms?
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has accused Philip Hammond of failing to cancel a “tax giveaway” by his predecessor to Britain’s biggest banks, worth more than £1bn this year.
In his summer budget after the 2015 general election, the then chancellor George Osborne announced deep cuts to the bank levy, which was introduced after the financial crisis and charged according to the size of banks’ balance sheets.
Big banks, including HSBC and Standard Chartered, which felt penalised by the levy, told him that they could move their headquarters outside the UK.
Osborne announced phased cuts in the levy over the parliament and made up the shortfall in revenue by imposing an 8% surcharge on banks’ corporation tax, which falls on all lenders, not just the largest.
McDonnell said by failing to reverse the cuts in the bank levy in November’s autumn statement, Hammond was handing the big banks a rebate taxpayers could ill afford.
The latest forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, published alongside the autumn statement, showed revenue from the bank levy at £2.7bn for the current financial year, instead of the £3.8bn expected last March, before the general election.
Source: Chancellor failing to cancel ‘tax giveaway’ to banks, says Labour | Business | The Guardian
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The thing is with these overpaid bank CEOs and Directors they lack common sense.Their biggest assets is not the bricks ‘n mortar (and lots of glass and marble cladding) its the spivs they employ who have the knack of creating many ways of extracting punters money usually ending in tears but always with a megga profit reflected in their bonus payments and salaries. Whilst Europe have plenty of heads they are usually no where near as productive or good at making some dosh on the edge. Maybe these guys do not want to live in Europe. It is much more likely they will ust keep or open UK linked branches in the EU so they will have feet in all camps. Should have let some of them fail, to call their bluff, several have gone to the wall or merged as a result of inhouse corruption and incompetence. What about a Government “honest” bank for the people we must still own one with our tax contributions.
So they would move their headquarters out of the UK, they can go but not be allowed to actually continue to work here then.
Being a complete b***h I would request that they surrender their passports andshut the door behind them as they leave for the EU which has shown more gumption about tackling Tax Avoidence than the tories have shown for all their big talk.