Protesters and Osborne agree over bank taxes
Protest group UK Uncut found itself with an unlikely ally in its campaign against banks – George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed big name institutions had not paid sufficient tax.
Demonstrators took over branches of Barclays across the UK after it emerged it paid just £113m in corporation tax in 2009, only one per cent of its £11.6bn profits. The Chancellor told Channel 4 News: "I don't think British banks were paying enough tax, including Barclays. That's why I have introduced a permanent tax on banks."
And investment bank JP Morgan Chase alleged, in a US court filing, that Lehman Brothers tricked it into holding on to collateral described as "goat poo" by the bankrupt bank, bought by Barclays in 2008.
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