Marketing Newscast

(Edited 24 January 2025)

Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she will amend the proposals announced in her Budget regarding non-doms; she had pledged to abolish the current tax system to make foreign nationals living in the UK pay tax on all their global income after four years. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Reeves said she would table an amendment to the Finance Bill after "listening to the concerns" of non-domiciled residents, telling Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker: “We’re always interested in hearing ideas for making our tax regime more attractive to talented entrepreneurs and business leaders from around the world to help create jobs and wealth in the UK.” It is widely reported that she is expected to increase the amount of money wealthy foreigners can bring into the UK without facing a substantial tax bill. Last week, it was revealed that one millionaire has quit the UK every 45 minutes since the Labour Government took power. Global analytics firm New World Wealth also found Britain lost a net 10,800 millionaires in 2024, a number the Adam Smith Institute calculated cost the Treasury the equivalent income tax take of over half a million average taxpayers.

Donald Trump reiterated his ‘America First’ trade policy at Davos yesterday, telling businesses they should make their products in the US, or face paying tariffs. “Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on earth,” the US President said, before adding: “But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff – differing amounts – but a tariff, which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt under the Trump administration.” He also said that under his administration there would be “no better place on earth” to create jobs, build factories or run companies than “the good old USA”. He also called on OPEC to lower oil prices and help end the Russia-Ukraine war, and demanded that the US Federal reserve, which sets interest rates, cut them immediately, saying high rates had led to deeper deficits and “economic calamity”. He also outlined some of the many measures he has taken since entering office on Monday, including ending former President Joe Biden’s green new deal – a package of climate incentives costing US taxpayers $370bn - which he called the “green new scam”.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has reiterated comments made by Rachel Reeves that there is no need for Trump to put bigger tariffs on UK exports as we run a trade defecit with the USA. Reynolds told the BBC he thought he had this “argument to engage” with in trade discussions, after Trump doubled down on his threat to hike tarrifs on some countries.

Although the public sector has hired an extra 600,000 staff since covid restrictions ended, productivity has still plunged, meaning taxpayers are paying more for less, the Telegraph’s Senior Economics Reporter Eir Nolsøe writes this morning. She says numbers from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the size of the public sector has swelled to 6.1m employees since the start of 2019, but public service productivity has slumped by 9.95% over the same period. Paul Mortimer Lee, from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said: “We are paying more money to get less. No wonder the people are bitter and taxes are so high,” adding that failing public sector productivity was “the real black hole Reeves should be concerned about”.

Yet another survey reveals how consumer confidence is plummeting in Britain. Data from GfK show it fell to a 13-month low of -22 in January, a five-point drop.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is cutting head count by around 10% after overshooting its budget last year. It began a voluntary redundancy programme in December, a person familiar with the matter has told City AM. They said CEO Sarah Cardell told staff on a phone call that she was looking too make a 100 redundancies after what she described as a “budgeting error”. Earlier this week the CMA chair, Marcus Bokkerink, was replaced by former Amazon UK executive Doug Gurr after a clash with Government Ministers.

Rolls-Royce has secured a £9bn deal to build nuclear submarine reactors for the Ministry of Defence. The eight-year contract, called Unity, is designed to make the design, manufacture and support services for reactors more efficient and environmentally friendly. It is hoped it will create more than 1,000 UK jobs and safeguard 4,000 other roles.

Waitrose has joined other major supermarkets in urging Rachel Reeves to halt her tax raid on farmers, saying that rural communities “are not an optional part” of Britain. They are the lifeblood of rural Britain and the backbone of our food system,” Jake Pickering, the supermarket’s head of agriculture, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “It is vital that their voice is heard.”

Sainsbury's is culling 3,000 jobs, 2% of its workforce, as it closes its remaining 61 cafes and its remaining patisserie, hot food and pizza counters as part of wider plans to simplify its business. The cuts include a 20% reduction of senior management roles. The supermarket said most of its shoppers do not regularly use the cafes and that the cafes and food halls run by specialist partners are becoming increasingly popular. CEO Simon Robert said: "The decisions we are announcing today are essential to ensure we continue to drive forward our momentum but have also meant some difficult choices impacting our dedicated colleagues in a number of parts of our business. We'll be doing everything we can to support anyone impacted by today's announcements." In June, Sainsbury’s announced it would transfer its banking arm to NatWest. The company, which also owns Argos and Habitat, said recently it had its “biggest ever Christmas” as sales at the supermarket rose 3.8% in the six weeks to 4^th January.

The Range Rover Evoque Plug-In Hybrid has been named the least loved car of 2024 by Which?, as it spent more time off the road for repairs – 21 days on average - than any other car on the list. Despite a stylish design and an original price tag of around £51,000, the hybrid model scored just 57% in the consumer group’s customer satisfaction poll. Meanwhile, the 2009-2015 Lexus RX Hybrid emerged as the most loved car in the survey, earning a 97% satisfaction score.

Barclays Bank is proposing nearly halving the fixed salary it pays to CEO CS Venkatakrishnan from £2.95m to £1.59m and capping his maximum earnings including bonuses and stock awards to £14.3m as part of an overhaul of his remuneration package. The pay of group finance director Anna Cross will also be impacted, if the changes are approved by shareholders, Sky News says.

And finally… Britain’s biggest taxpayers have been revealed in the latest Sunday Times Tax List, and topping it is Sir Chris Hohn, who founded British hedge fund the Children’s Investment Fund Management in 2003, and paid £339m over the past year. Next came Bedfred owners Fred and Peter Dohn, who paid £273.4m, and Bet365’s Denise Coates, £264m. Stephen Rubin, the founder of Pentland Group ranked fourth with payments of £208.9m, and in fifth place was Mark O’Hare, the founder of investment data platform Preqin, who racked up the tax bill after selling it to Blackrock for £2bn in July. Other big payers included Wetherspoons’ founder Tim Martin, AB Food-owners the Weston Family and Home Bargains’ founder Tom Morris. New entries to the 2025 list include Ecotricity founder Dale Vince, a major Labour party donor who left school with only a couple of Es and Fs at GCSE but who has since become one of the UK’s most recognisable entrepreneurs, having founded Ecotricity, which created Britain's first electric vehicle charging network (it was sold to Gridserve in 2021). 33-year old Ed Sheeran was the youngest taxpayer on the list, having contributed £19.9m to the Exchequer in 2024, half what he paid in 2023. All in all, the 100 wealthy individuals on the list paid a combined total of almost £5bn in UK tax last year, however that was a 7% drop on 2023’s list, despite the fact a record fifteen people paid £100m or more in tax.