WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 23, 2011 FUNANCIAL TIMES BP GULF SPILL PROBE UNCOVERS VALVE BLOCKAGE BP’s Macondo well continued to spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deep water Horizon rig explosion last year because a piece of pipe was wedged in the valves that were supposed to shut it off, an investigation into the accident has found. The [...]
CARNAGE IN JERUSALEM March 23, 2011 A BOMB planted in a bag exploded near a bus stop in a Jewish district of Jerusalem yesterday, killing a woman and injuring at least 30 people, in an attack police blamed on Palestinian militants.
Corporate tax cut – but not for the banks March 23, 2011 BUSINESSES welcomed George Osborne’s decision to go further and faster in lowering corporation tax in yesterday’s Budget. But banks didn’t get the cut, with the Treasury increasing its bank levy for the second time in as many months in order to offset the gain they would have received from the corporate tax measure. Osborne announced [...]
Osborne calls big businesses home to UK plc March 23, 2011 MULTINATIONALS that have fled Britain’s punitive business tax regime gave a cautious welcome to yesterday’s Budget, with UBM and WPP both saying that the country is going in the right direction of travel. Communications group WPP moved its headquarters to Dublin in 2008, but chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell said yesterday that the Budget was a positive [...]
Oil explorers rage at 32pc North Sea tax March 23, 2011 NORTH SEA oil firms were left aghast by the chancellor’s surprise tax hike on offshore fuel explorations yesterday, which has been imposed immediately to fund the fuel duty cut. North Sea-focused oil explorers saw their shares hammered by the news yesterday that an existing levy on profits from UK production will rise from 20 to [...]
Carbon floor hits power firms March 23, 2011 GEORGE Osborne slapped a minimum price on carbon emissions permits in yesterday’s Budget, which is set to hammer energy producers which rely on fossil fuels and add up to £17 a year to home energy bills by 2016. The carbon price floor will force power generators to pay at least £16 per tonne of carbon [...]
Non-doms escape crackdown but UK will reap extra £200m, says Osborne March 23, 2011 NON-DOMS escaped the budget without the crackdown some were expecting but Osborne says he will raise an extra £200m from them over the coming years. A raft of new rules were applied to non-doms – people residing in the UK, but not domiciled here to avoid paying UK tax on their foreign earnings, the most [...]
Motorists win 1p fuel duty cut to ease pain of rising oil prices March 23, 2011 GEORGE Osborne sweetened his Budget for consumers with a surprise 1p per litre fuel duty cut, effective from 6pm yesterday. The tax cut, announced at the end of Osborne’s 56-minute Budget speech yesterday, will be funded by a 12 percentage point tax hike on North Sea oil exploration. A fuel “stabiliser” will also attempt to [...]
Banks face probe for their use of Big Four auditors March 23, 2011 THE GOVERNMENT has asked regulators to investigate whether banks help to entrench the Big Four auditing firms’ dominance through restrictive lending agreements with companies. The Budget included a call to the Office of Fair Trading to probe whether bank covenants lock out smaller auditors. The Financial Reporting Council had expressed concern to lawmakers last year [...]
Tourist tax rise scrapped and Learjet raid delayed March 23, 2011 THE chancellor scrapped a planned rise in air passenger duty yesterday, but admitted that legal difficulties have shelved a change to aviation tax. Air passenger duty will be frozen this year, with a hike linked to the retail price index planned for April 2012, George Osborne said. The government said in the emergency June Budget [...]
