On Westminster Bridge on Tuesday demonstrators wearing masks of the big four banks’ CEOs gestured with jeroboams of champagne and sacks of cash. Positive Money, Tax Justice UK, the Fairness Foundation, Equality Trust and others are campaigning for a windfall tax on banks’ accelerating domestic profits. Inflation has yet again raised their takings to record heights for no extra effort, the same inflation that also raises the cost of living.
When oil and gas prices soared in 2022, the Tory government set a 35% energy profits levy. Why not on banks, an equally unavoidable utility, they demand? Naturally British banks fight back. “Our sector underpins investment, business growth and home ownership across the country,” says their lobby group, UK Finance. It will damage their competitiveness with foreign banks. Nonsense, say the campaigners, they would only tax UK retail profits. Banks’ investment in the real economy has been dropping, as they pay growing sums to their shareholders.
