JP Morgan boss warns of ‘consequences’ if Burnham taxes banks | Banking

JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon has warned Andy Burnham against increasing the tax burden on banks, suggesting it could threaten plans to build its £3bn headquarters in London and divert investment away from Britain.

The chief executive of the world’s largest bank, who has a track record of criticizing the UK’s bank tax surcharges, does not want to see the UK’s new prime minister target the banking sector for extra revenue.

“So, ‘taxing the banks’ may sound nice, but what my shareholders are paying for that extra tax is $5 billion,” Dimon said on the Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost in an interview recorded last week and aired Tuesday. “I think things like that will have negative consequences.”

Banks in the UK pay a 28% corporation tax rate, which is higher than the standard 25%, as well as a separate tax on their UK balance sheets.

“If I were a government that thought punishing any company in an unusual way was a good thing for that country, I would be very careful,” Dimon said. “I always thought [the UK bank levy] he was wrong.

“JP Morgan did no harm to the UK and I called the Chancellor at the time. [We] It did no harm to England. We are great citizens there. We hire people there. “We want to be bigger there.”

Dimon last year granted permission to build a 279,000 square meter (3m sq ft) tower in Canary Wharf, just hours after the banking sector was exempted from increased taxes in former chancellor Rachel Reeves’ autumn budget.

But in May Dimon said he could cancel plans to build the £3bn tower, which will serve as JP Morgan’s UK headquarters and house more than half its 23,000 UK workforce, if Keir Starmer is replaced by a new Labor prime minister hostile to the banks.

He repeated his warning on the podcast, saying he didn’t know what he would do about the planned office if the Burnham government increased taxes on banks.

Asked if he would make a U-turn on the decision to build the Canary Wharf tower, he said: “It’s a binary decision… I don’t know what to do. “I thought about Rachel. [Reeves] He did a great job by the way. I want London to be a happy home for a long time.

He added: “[The UK] “It must have a tax system that is consistent and competitive that helps capital formation that will enable a country to grow.”

Unions are calling on Burnham to tax wealth and the Trades Union Congress has claimed £9 billion could be raised within four years if the previous Conservative government’s cut to the bank surcharge was reversed.

“If you have an uncompetitive tax system, capital leaves your country,” Dimon said. “And if capital leaves your country, it goes to other countries. And you see that now. You see, what is it? How many companies have left London in the last few years? If I were running a country, I wouldn’t want to see that.”