Chancellor Osborne to unveil bank tax

Chancellor George Osborne will proceed with a bank levy despite the failure to agree a universal tax at this weekend’s G20 summit.

The summit, which was Mr Osborne’s first G20 meeting, saw no mention of a proposal for a bank levy.

Speaking after the summit, the Chancellor said: “We’ll introduce a levy regardless of whether other countries will or will not.”

The controversial global bank tax has previously been backed by the US and Europe, but some developing nations, as well as Canada and Australia, are against it.

In fact, Canada was in favour of getting the plan shelved.

The G20 made it clear that the financial sector should make a “fair and substantial contribution” to future bailouts.

Meanwhile, Mr Osborne is set to outline the details of the tax in his first Budget later this month, but it is likely to be based on the size of their balance sheets.

It is expected that many other countries will follow suit with the US and Europe to implement similar measures, in order to try to claw back some of the vast amounts injected into the sector.

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