JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon warned UK Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey in a call last week against higher taxes on banks as Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government prepares its budget for October, the Financial Times reported.
Dimon said higher taxes often drive away jobs, citing a decline in finance jobs in New York that he blamed in part on the city’s tax burden, the report said, citing unidentified people briefed on the conversation.
Burnham has left the door open to increasing bank taxes in the budget as strong profits in the financial industry spur calls, including from organized labor, to increase levies on lenders.
Dimon reiterated his criticism of the UK’s bank tax surcharge in recent weeks, saying an increase could drive capital away. “If you have a uncompetitive tax system, capital leaves your country,” Dimon said on the Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, as part of a conversation on July 16.