Three high profile business leaders yesterday called on Alistair Darling to scrap his unpopular tax changes on capital gains and non-domiciled residents, adding to the pressure mounting on the chancellor from the City for a turnaround on the issue.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, a former home secretary and European
commissioner; Philip Yea, chief executive of private equity firm
3i Group; and Michael Snyder,
policy chairman of the
City of
London Corporation, stressed the proposals would damage London's ability to
compete with other financial centres, The Times reports.
Yea and Snyder are members of the chancellor's high-level group which advises
Darling on City issues and their warning follows hard on the heals of damning
comments this week from Mervyn Davies, Standard Chartered chairman, who is a
member of the Prime Minister's business council, and Alan Yarrow, vice-chairman
of Dresdner Kleinwort, another member of the high-level group.
Lord Brittan said the changes to capital gains tax would stifle entrepreneurism. ‘The degree of anger in the business community is much greater than the government had anticipated,’ he said.
Further reading:
Firms report brisk business ahead of CGT change
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