Campaign orgs send out pleas on Windfall tax


by Newswire    
4:19 pm - December 7th 2009

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The campaign group Compass and pressure group 38 Degrees today both sent out mailouts to their subscribers calling for them to take action on a bankers Windfall Tax.

This was the mail from Compass, which has always spearheaded the call for a Windfall Tax.

Today’s newspapers are reporting that the Alistair Darling is considering an emergency tax on bankers’ bonuses. This is great news for all Compass activists that have campaigned for months for tougher action on bankers.

The next 48 hours before the Pre-Budget report are vital. To beat the city spin machine we need to send a loud message to the Chancellor. We’d like you to send him an email and invite your friends to do the same.

http://action.compassonline.org.uk/48hours

Reports suggest Ministers are worried about the “technical difficulties” of introducing such a tax and they are also facing a backlash from the city.

The case for a windfall tax isn’t simply one of justice: there are economic benefits too. The proceeds of a windfall tax could fund a Green New Deal.

We have just 48 hours and we can only do it with your help – click here, send an email to the Chancellor and then invite your friends to join in too.

http://action.compassonline.org.uk/48hours

Let’s be clear, the latest profits reported by banks are in the most part unearned; they have largely been accumulated not from hard work and responsibility, but made off the back of tax-payer and government bailouts.

We cannot allow the bullying from the city to continue, in the next 48 hours we need your help to defeat the city spin and make sure the Chancellor delivers.

And this was the mail-out from 38 Degrees:

Today’s papers all report that right now the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is considering a tax on bankers’ bonuses. We’ve been campaigning together for months now for action to rein in bonuses, and this is great progress.

But the banks are fighting back. They’re using all their lobbying power to try to stop the Chancellor’s plans, even claiming that taxing their bonuses would breach their human rights. [1]

The government says it will make its decision “in the next 48 hours”. [2] That means we’ve got 48 hours to outweigh the banks’ lobbying pressure. Together we need to send Alistair Darling a clear message that after the taxpayer has spent billions bailing out the banks, it’s only fair to put a tax on their bonuses.

Tell Alistair Darling we want him to stand up to the banks: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/bank-bonus-tax

Many families in the UK are facing a tough, recession-hit christmas. Millions of people have lost their jobs or their homes, or suffered the worry that it might happen to them. Meanwhile, over 5000 bankers are currently expecting to get a bonus of over £1million. [3]

The banks played a lead role in causing this crisis and it took a huge amount of taxpayers’ money to rescue them. Yet even banks largely owned by the taxpayer, like RBS, are putting heavy pressure on the chancellor to allow them to hand out record amounts of taxpayers money in bonuses.

Together we’ve been campaigning for the government to make sure that the recession doesn’t hit the poorest hardest. Just last Friday we handed our petition to the Chancellor calling for him to commit £4 billion to stop more children falling into poverty. A tax on bankers’ bonuses is one of the ways the Chancellor could raise the money he needs to protect children from the worst effects of the recession. Together we can push him to make sure that banks start to pay back the money they owe us.
Tell Alistair Darling we support a tax on bank bonuses: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/bank-bonus-tax

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Reader comments


1. Richard

Aren’t they already covered by 40% income tax?

2. David Moss

This is all great of course, but regrettably Compass, 38 Degrees et al can only target a relatively small number of socially engaged, mostly progressive people. At times like this, with a proposal that would attract support from (and the attention of) from the masses, what we really need is some means to get the e-mail to the (broadly) apolitical majority.

3. Sevillista

@Richard

“Aren’t they already covered by 40% income tax?”

1. No, I suspect largely not. At the top, many if not most individual bankers are registered companies. The creativity of bankers at protecting their income is unsurpassed, which bodes ill for trying to curtail their remuneration.

2. It is clear that the bonuses being paid are on the back of taxpayers investment, even for banks that had no bail-out. The bail-out made bad loans come
good, and current bonuses are rewarding bankers for their “good judgement” in assuming their crap investments would be made good by the taxpayer. Clearly a windfall and ripe for a special tax. Or you think that bankers deserve to have free insurance to the tune of £1 trillion every 20 years?

3. The corporate governance structure is not working. These bonuses are not in shareholder interests. Collective action by the Government on behalf of shareholders to alleviate these failings until a long-term solution is found.


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