Date: Tuesday 13 Jul 2010
The Government is considering introducing taxes on banks’ pay and profits — on top of the £2bn funding levy announced in the Budget. Mark Hoban, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, revealed the plan at a dinner for the country’s most senior bankers at the Mansion House last night.He said that banks should reform themselves, but warned that the Government would still explore the costs and benefits of a financial activities tax on profits and remuneration, the Times reports.
A seventy-five tonne containment device lowered over the rogue BP oil well offers the best hope yet of finally capturing all the oil spewing from the well-head into the Gulf of Mexico. For the first time in 84 days, the fountain of black crude that cameras have filmed since soon after the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up appeared briefly to have been stopped altogether last night, the Times reports.
BP is forecast to pay about $10bn (£6.7bn) less tax over the next four years as it meets the costs of its huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, hitting the revenues of Britain and the US that receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the company each year. The shortfall, representing a drop of more than a quarter in BP’s tax payments, is a particular concern for the British government attempting to cut the country’s budget deficit, the FT reports.
China's leading credit rating agency has stripped America, Britain, Germany and France of their AAA ratings, accusing Anglo-Saxon competitors of ideological bias in favour of the West. Dagong Global Credit Rating used its first foray into sovereign debt to paint a revolutionary picture of creditworthiness around the world, giving much greater weight to "wealth creating capacity" and foreign reserves than Fitch, Standard &
Meanwhile, Standard & Poor's reaffirmed the UK's sovereign debt rating as AAA yesterday, prompted in part by what the rating agency described as the Government's "strong framework for fiscal consolidation". But the agency also warned that a "number of large and politically challenging spending decisions" are still to be reached, the Independent reports.
People holding accounts at banks that fail could soon have their savings of up to €100,000 (£84,000) returned to them within a week, under new EU plans. The draft laws from the European Commission, published on Monday, are designed to shore up confidence in the wake of the financial crisis, the Telegraph reports.
GlaxoSmithKline, the UK's biggest drug maker, faces a showdown over its blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia, which could result in the product being pulled from the market in the US and expose the company to billions of dollars in lawsuits. The drug maker will today present a defence of Avandia's safety in front of a make-or-break scientific panel, which is meeting to discuss whether it increases patients' risk of having a heart attack or a stroke, the Independent reports.
Britain’s flood defence network could be sold to the private sector in the biggest shake-up of the industry in decades. The Treasury is understood to be exploring ways of making drastic cuts in the £713m annual flood defence bill by attracting more private investment. If the plans were approved, the Thames Barrier and defences on the Ouse and Severn rivers could be sold, the Times reports.
The inflation-adjusted level of house prices in Britain is likely to remain below its pre-recession levels for the next five years, one of the country's leading consultancies said today. A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed there was a 70% chance that the real cost of a property in 2015 would be below that in 2007 and a 50% chance that it would take until 2020 for the market to rise above its previous peak, the Guardian reports.
According to the latest Bellwether Report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and accountants BDO, 20% of companies reduced their marketing budgets over the three months to the end of June. Only 15% of UK companies increased their budgets. Of the different categories, main media spend was revised down in the quarter following a modest upgrade in the previous quarter. Spending on the Internet increased slightly, although the rate of growth was the slowest for three quarters, the Times reports.
An estimated six million people with deferred pension promises from previous private sector employers are set to be the biggest casualties of the Government’s ruling that benefits should be raised in line with the consumer prices index rather than the retail prices index. So-called “deferreds” in 60% of defined-benefit schemes could be affected immediately by the plan to reduce the minimum inflation-proofing of benefits, according to a KPMG straw poll of 50 funds, the Times reports.
The Financial Services Authority has moved one step closer to imposing tough new rules that will restrict the availability of mortgages. The FSA has called on banks and building societies to implement detailed affordability calculations to ensure that borrowers can afford to take out a mortgage. The proposals could see new applicants asked about their daily spending habits, such as the amount they spend on drinking or going to the cinema, the Times reports. 
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