Alistair Darling, chancellor, is preparing a crackdown on “extraordinarily high” bankers’ bonuses when he makes his pre-Budget report on Wednesday, but is expected to reject a windfall tax on bank profits.
Alistair Darling, chancellor, is preparing a crackdown on “extraordinarily high” bankers’ bonuses when he makes his pre-Budget report on Wednesday, but is expected to reject a windfall tax on bank profits.
Mr Darling’s officials are in a race against time to draw up some form of supertax to curb what the chancellor fears will be a lavish bonus season, only months before a general election.
But Treasury officials admit that devising such a scheme is fraught with technical problems. “The problem is that we are dealing with people who are usually one step ahead of us,” joked one.
Related
Any tax on bankers would not make a big dent in an expected deficit of about £180bn, but Mr Darling knows the political sensitivity of allowing bankers at part-nationalised banks to walk off with huge pay-outs.
“We are not going to be held to ransom by people who believe you can pay extraordinarily high bonuses without regard to what’s going on,” Mr Darling told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme.
To read the full story, visit ft.com
Content from our partners
