Taxing corporate greed to tackle public need

LRC sets out alternative budget strategy

The LRC has today set out its alternative budget, which proposes launching an assault on corporate greed. This assault would include a windfall tax on city bonuses and on the profits of the banks and oil companies, as well as clamping down on corporate tax avoidance.

The second strand of this budget would be the 'peace dividend' produced from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the reduction of UK military expenditure to the EU average.

Such revenue would provide a Labour Chancellor with the opportunity to pay off the NHS deficit; abolish prescription charges and care charges for the elderly; raise pensions to the level of the Pension Credit and restore the earnings link; wipe out all student debt and scrap top-up fees; bring 350,000 children out of poverty by raising Child Benefit by £5 per child per week; build additional housing and raise all council homes to the Decent Homes Standard.

John McDonnell MP, LRC Chair, said:

“The LRC is urging the Chancellor to break with traditional budgets, which promote marginal changes in public expenditure, and to strike out on a much more radical budget agenda, which focuses on taxing corporate greed to tackle public need.

“The NHS flounders in deficit while the banks make obscene profit. Iraq burns while energy companies plunder their bounty from Iraq. Those profits and our own expenditure to provide cover for Bush's trail of death could be used to save life and improve living standards for our most vulnerable citizens.”

Download the table detailing the LRC's alternative budget (31k PDF documen)

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