959

THE WEEKLY WORLD EDITION OF The DailyTelegraph AND The SundayTelegraph

December 9 - 15 2009 No. 959

telegraph.co.uk/expat

TheTelegraph

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:: DETAILS P5

Knox I expected to be free and flying back home

World Cup draw Capello’s men in group of good hope :: SPORT P48

By Rosa Prince Political Correspondent HIGH earners have been warned by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, that they will be expected to “bear the greatest burden” of economic recovery in this week’s pre-Budget report.

Mr Darling is considering levying a one-off windfall tax on bank profits and a supertax on bankers who receive bonuses above a certain level, and indicated that he expected the rich to pay more in tax.

Taxing profits at 10 per cent would bring in about £2billion this year alone, but while both moves are said to be “on the table”, a final decision has yet to be taken and the Chancellor was discussing the options with Gordon Brown this week.

Mr Darling indicated that there would be no backtracking in the pre-Budget report (PBR) on the new higher rate of income tax — of 50p on earnings of more than £150,000 — to be introduced from next April.

Amid warnings from business groups about the impact of hefty tax rises on the people he needs to drive growth, he is thought to have resisted calls to extend the rate to those earning £100,000 or more.

David Frost, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said raising taxes on middle and high earners would be “enormously damaging” for Britain at a time when it needed talented people to drive an economic recovery.

“The very people we need in this country to create wealth could be located anywhere and will simply go somewhere else,” he said. “Taxes above 50 per cent would be hugely harmful for the UK. This is the very time that we need as much business in the UK as possible.”

However, with borrowing expected to reach £180billion, the highest level since the Second World War, Mr Darling warned that the rich would have to expect tax rises, saying on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show: “You would expect the broadest shoulders to bear the greatest burden.”

Any windfall levy on banks’ profits would be designed to apply not just to British banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, but also to British arms of global

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Sailors freed Wrong maps sent British yachstmen into Iranian waters :: NEWS P9

Nevil Shute The stammerer who lived to tell stories :: FEATURES P27

Amanda Knox told her family that she expected to be cleared of murdering Meredith Kercher, a Leeds University student, right up until the moment the guilty verdict was delivered. Her stepmother said she too was expecting to fly home to the United States with 22-year-old Knox. Reports, page 3

AP

Secret email: Don’t mention this, but it’s bloody freezing here. Summit may be last chance to save world from ‘catastrophic’ global warming News: Page 6