Monday newspaper round-up: Mansion tax, BP, Portugal...

28th Mar 2011 06:40

Taxes will be increased on expensive houses, allowing the government to fulfil its longer-term promise to scrap the 50p income tax rate, Nick Clegg has said.The deputy prime minister said the top rate would be eliminated once people on lower middle incomes were "breathing more easily" but only if it was accompanied by a new tax regime for high-end properties. The Liberal Democrat leader told the Financial Times: "A liberal tax system rewards work and enterprise and captures pollution and unearned wealth."The Times adds that owners of multimillion-pound houses could face bills of tens of thousands of pounds a year after Vince Cable revealed that he had revived his "mansion tax" proposals that came unstuck before the last election. The Business Secretary is likely to cause ructions in the coalition with his announcement that he is pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy and claimed that George Osborne, the Chancellor, is broadly sympathetic to his calls, the Times reports.UK bank regulators are coming under attack on two fronts, with both investors and international peers chiding the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority over their aggressive stance on bank capital. Concerns have mounted as a proposal by a Bank of England adviser, calling for the doubling of new internationally agreed capital ratios, appears to have gained ground. Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, has described the idea as "wise" in a "greenfield market economy", adding that large "systemically important" financial institutions, dubbed SIFIs, must hold additional capital beyond the international minimum in the form of equity, the FT reports.The introduction of a carbon tax in the Budget to penalise coal-fired power stations that emit greenhouse gases threatens to accelerate the closure of generating plant, potentially creating a serious energy supply gap in the middle of the decade. The electricity generating industry has warned the Treasury that it has gone too far, too fast by implementing a carbon price floor in last week's Budget, claiming that the tax could also kill off plans by coal-fired power stations for futuristic and expensive carbon-capture schemes., the Times reports. Extremely high levels of radioactivity have been de¬tected in a building beside the No 2 reactor at Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The discovery raises concerns of a fresh obstacle to efforts to stabilise the crisis after it emerged that the No?3 reactor was not likely to have been breached, as feared earlier.Efforts to repair the cooling systems at the No 2 and No 3 reactors are being delayed by the need to drain radioactive water from the floors, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the plant's owner, said, the FT reports.Intermediate Capital Group has acquired 20% of Westbury Street Holdings, Britain's fourth-biggest caterer. The purchase by the FTSE 250 listed investment firm comes soon after it took stakes in Courtepaille, the French restaurant chain, and Quorn, the meat-free food group. The deal, for an undisclosed price, is part of a wider refinancing at Westbury that has allowed MML Capital Partners, the private equity firm, to sell its 27% holding, the Times reports.Efforts by BP to hammer out its $16bn (£10bn) share swap and Arctic exploration deal with Russian energy group Rosneft had the full support of the Foreign Office over an 18-month period, cables show. A series of meetings between Anne Pringle, British ambassador in Moscow, and BP executives covering discussions about a Rosneft tie-up - as well as conversations about the strained relations in the TNK-BP partnership - are listed in censored cables released on Sunday under the Freedom of Information Act, the Telegraph reports.The Portuguese government has come under renewed pressure to accept a European bail-out at the start of another crucial week for the eurozone. Ewald Nowotny, a governing council member of the European Central Bank, said Portugal should seek help from Europe after the resignation of the prime minister over austerity measures, the Times reports. Ford is the latest car giant to cut production as the industrial fallout from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami ripples through the global automotive industry. The US company said at the weekend that it will idle its factory in Genk, Belgium, for five days in early April, to conserve supplies of parts shipped from Japan. The group stressed that the move is a defensive strategy, rather than a response to a direct shortage. "Given the situation in Japan, we took this as a precautionary measure," a Ford spokesman said, the Independent reports.There will be few eyebrow-raising increases in executive salaries this year, as companies bow to shareholder pressure, but controversial bonuses for bosses will continue, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Salary increases for senior staff will remain modest at 3%, half the 6% levels achieved in 2007 and 2008, the accountants predict in a survey published today. But bonuses could soar at almost a third of firms, forced to sweeten packages for executives unhappy about effective pay freezes, the Independent reports. Britain is once again a "world class place to launch new businesses" after George Osborne's Budget, say 39 of the country's leading venture capitalists. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, the businessmen welcome new investment rules introduced by the Chancellor as a "shot in the arm" for enterprise, allowing them to pour more funds into start-up projects. Described as "angel investors" because of their generosity in helping start-up companies, the 39 signatories include influential figures behind recent successes such as Lovefilm.com and Zoopla, the property website.