Tax the supermarkets

Labour`s belated calling on the government to block "foreign takeovers of British firms" is to be welcomed, but there are plenty of other areas relating to the economy which the Opposition needs to address. The news that the discount retailer B&M is clinging to its £38m from the Treasury even as it pays a £250m special dividend to its shareholders, highlights the fact that the Treasury`s Covid-support programme has been handled appallingly. The receipt of state aid such as loans, grants and, as in the case of B&M and other companies allowed to trade during the lockdowns, relief from business rates, should have been subject to certain conditions.These could have included withholding dividend payments to shareholders, guaranteeing reduced pay ratios, ending obscenely high bonus payments to CEOs, and curtailing involvement in all tax avoidance schemes. According to the real estate adviser Altus Group, the UK's supermarkets will have benefited from almost £2bn in business tax breaks this year, and unsurprisingly, all have enjoyed record levels of profit and paid millions to shareholders. Tesco, with tax savings of £585m paid out a £315m to shareholders last month, whilst Sainsbury`s, saving £498m, are now following suit. No doubt next year, there will be bonuses for managers and CEOs of all supermarkets in the UK, and for what? Selling food to a nation when all other shops are closed on government instructions! Far better, even than paying back the millions to the Treasury, would be to award significant pay rises to all supermarket employees, from shelf-stackers to warehouse staff, delivery drivers to workers on the checkouts, the people who, along with NHS workers, really did keep the country going! It would have the additional bonus of pressurising our measly government to award pay rises to key workers in the public sector! Failure to introduce the pay rises should be met with the imposition of an immediate windfall tax on all supermarkets!