George Osborne’s planned financial services levy is a lamentable failure according to international benchmarks. The IMF has called for any banking tax in Britain to be set at £6 billion. Last week, Left Foot Forward highlighted the socially regressive nature of the £2.5bn tax which will mean banks contributing 50 per cent less than families (child benefit and tax credit cuts) to the government’s fiscal consolidation programme.
The recent IMF report on financial transaction taxes does not seek to endorse or dismiss the idea, but rather provide a categorical analysis and evaluation.
On Monday the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the UK economy was improving steadily from recession and that it was strong enough to cope with the cuts in public spending and tax increases proposed by George Osborne. But their assessment is out-of-date. The economy was recovering prior to Osborne’s June budget, but growth has clearly weakened since then
Limit taxpayer-exposure to future financial crises, raise revenue to replenish government finances, address supernormal, often grotesque, profits and bonuses.
New unemployment figures are out today. But research from the IMF shows that Britain’s unemployment rate has been kept lower than economic models anticipated.
Trump’s commitment to protectionism has destroyed the growth models on which Reeves’s budget was built
The evidence of past policy failures is all around us. Since 2010, the real economy has grown by around 1.2% a year and is set to have the weakest growth amongst G7 countries.
As allies look sorrowfully on at our underfunded and shrinking armed forces, Britain’s arms trade is making a killing, with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being handed to arms manufacturers that give investors rich returns.
Jim McMahon was shadow environment secretary
‘Top earners in London have pulled away whilst middle earners have seen little pay growth’
