Date: Wednesday 23 Jun 2010
Every household in Britain will be worse off after George Osborne unveiled £29bn worth of annual tax rises and the biggest cuts in public spending for almost a century.In an ambitious attempt to reduce the nation’s borrowing, the Chancellor said everyone had to share the pain to repair “the ruins” of the economy. Setting out what he described as the unavoidable Budget, Mr Osborne admitted that the better off would shoulder the largest burden of tackling the “emergency” facing Britain’s finances, the Telegraph reports.
Proposals to cut the rate of corporation tax to 24% over the next four years will give Britain the fifth lowest rate in the G20 and signal that it is "open for business", George Osborne said yesterday. The measure was greeted enthusiastically by many businesses, which face an overall reduction in corporation tax of £1bn a year after taking account of cuts in allowances that were less severe than feared, the FT reports.
Video games industry bodies have reacted with anger to the government's announcement that it will scrap plans to introduce tax breaks for the UK games industry. In the emergency budget, the chancellor called Labour's pre-election plans to offer tax cuts to video games companies "poorly targeted", the Guardian reports.
Asda's market share has fallen to its lowest level for 18 months, according to the latest industry figures, as Britain's second-biggest supermarket group battles more moderate food price inflation and nimbler rivals. Figures released by Kantar Worldpanel, the consumer research group, showed Tesco's sales grew in line with the market, maintaining its market share at 30.8%. J Sainsbury enjoyed a sales bounce, expanding at 4.4 per cent and lifting its market share from 16.1% to 16.2%, while at 6.1% Wm Morrison was the fastest growing of the big four supermarkets, increasing its market share from 11.6% to 11.9%, the FT reports.
BP has sent its vice-president for the North Sea on a tour of oil rigs in the region to reassure workers their jobs are safe, following speculation the oil giant is preparing to withdraw from Britain. Its shares fell by 4% on Tuesday, closing down at their lowest since 1996 at 334.28p, as Russia also sought guarantees that BP’s investments are financially secure following its US oil leak, the Telegraph reports.
John Varley, the chief executive of Barclays Bank, said that pursuing the acquisition of Lehman Brothers at the height of the financial panic in 2008 led to "the riskiest week" of his life. Recounting negotiations in the days before and after the bankruptcy of the Wall street investment bank, Mr Varley said it had been impossible to tell for certain what Lehman's assets or liabilities might be worth, which was why Barclays insisted on numerous conditions before agreeing to purchase the company's US operations at a knock-down price, the Independent reports.The Dutch insurer Aegon warned of job losses among its 3,700 life and pensions employees in the UK yesterday as part of a major overhaul of its operations. The company aims to cut its costs in Britain by 25 per cent by the end of next year under a plan to refocus the business and pull out of unprofitable areas. Aegon said it was too early to say how this would affect staff, but it plans to give more details at the end of September, the Independent reports.
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