ISSUE NO. 47 · WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBER 2026

Banks already pay 46% of profits in tax, £121bn of billionaire wealth has left, and your employer picked your pension on price

British banks hand over 46% of their profits in tax, more than their rivals in Amsterdam or Frankfurt, and they are about to be asked for more. A year ago their lobbyists wanted the surcharge scrapped. They have stopped asking.

Four weeks out, the Budget is pulling everything towards it. The same speculation that has bank bosses bracing for a levy has helped push billionaires worth £121bn out of the country or loosened their ties, and the people who advise them say the talk does as much damage as the policy. The third story is quieter and closer to home.

Below: a levy the banks can see coming, a wealth exodus driven by rumour, the pension nobody asked you about, four numbers, the diary and one calculator.

Lead

Bank bosses meet the Chancellor this week, four weeks before a Budget in which their surcharge is back on the table.

PwC puts total taxes at 46% of UK bank profits, against 42% in Amsterdam and 39% in Frankfurt. On top of corporation tax sits the banking surcharge, cut from 8% to 3%, and the fear in the City is that Healey lifts it while sparing the UK arms of international banks — a penalty for being home-grown, as the analyst John Cronin puts it. Positive Money has floated a windfall levy raising £19bn from HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest alone. The sweetener may go to the challengers: Revolut, Investec and Shawbrook want the surcharge allowance raised from £100m to £500m. Read the full story →

The Numbers

Four numbers. The close is Monday’s, since Tuesday’s session was still trading when this was written, and the Bank Rate and CPI prints are unchanged. The fourth comes from the lead.

More News

Super-rich residents worth £121bn have left Britain or loosened their ties since 2024, and the advisers blame the rumours as much as the rules.

The figure comes from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and covers most of Britain’s billionaire wealth: Lakshmi Mittal, John Fredriksen, Nassef Sawiris, and now David Reuben, worth an estimated £28bn, who has gone completely after years of loosening his ties. Leslie Macleod-Miller of Foreign Investors for Britain argues that constant noise about exit taxes, wealth taxes and higher capital gains tax signals that success here is there to be raided. Chris Rokos handed the Exchequer an estimated £350m last year and has since swapped his residency for Greece. Magda Wierzycka names the loss nobody counts: the entrepreneurs who read the rules and never arrive. Read the full story →

Your pension provider was chosen by your employer, and the thing that decided it was almost certainly the fee.

Susan Langley, Lady Mayor of the City of London, says workplace pension choices lean too hard on cost, and that chasing the cheapest fee crowds out the investments with the best shot at stronger long-term returns. Seventeen defined contribution providers have signed the Mansion House Accord, promising to steer 10% of default fund assets into private markets by 2030, at least half of it invested in Britain. For many savers the pot will end up worth more than the house. The decision that shapes it is taken by an employer, at a contract renewal, usually on price. Read the full story →

The Brief

• Overpriced Deals, Not Volatility, Froze the IPO Market — Renaissance Capital blames the price tags, not the turbulence.

On the Diary

• Today, 7.00am BST — Lloyds House Price Index, September. Out an hour before this lands, and the second reading on a market that has started falling.
• Tomorrow, 9.30am BST — Business insights and impact on the UK economy. What firms are saying about costs and trading with the Budget four weeks out.
• Thursday 15 October, 7.00am BST — Monthly GDP, August. The last hard growth reading the OBR gets before it marks the Chancellor’s homework.

The Toolbox

One tool from the site each issue, picked to fit what has just happened. Free, no sign-up, and it shows its workings.

Dividend income calculator

“If you hold bank shares, a surcharge decision reaches your dividends before it reaches anything else. This works out what a holding actually pays you once tax is taken, at your rate.”

The Close

Two of today’s stories are the same story told from opposite ends. The banks are bracing for a Budget that has not happened, and the billionaires left over one that had not happened either. In both cases the damage was done by what people expected rather than by anything announced. Watch what the Chancellor says between now and the end of the month, and how much of it he finds he has to say twice.

If something here is wrong, or there is something you want dug into, just reply. It comes straight to me.

MJB