United Kingdom plans "windfall" tax on energy

The UK is considering a windfall tax for energy companies. The news is advanced by the Financial Times, which indicates that Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has asked cabinet members to prepare a tax proposal.

Sunak intends to tax more than 10 billion pounds in windfall profits related to the energy crisis, covering electricity and gas producers. The idea will be to go further than the "windfall tax" plan drawn up by Labour Party, thus capturing billions of pounds to support families struggling with rising energy costs.

"North Sea oil and gas producers are only half of it," a government source explained to the Financial Times. "The other half is about the quite substantial windfall profits that the power companies have made because of rising gas prices."

In the group could be large British companies such as SSE, ScottishPower, EDF Energy or RWE. According to the same unidentified sources, Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson will urgently press ahead with measures related to rising energy prices. The announcement could be made later this week.

In Portugal, the Left Block has also proposed a new tax on extraordinary profits, aiming for an extraordinary rate of 25% on the part of the taxable profit for the second half of 2021 that exceeds by 10% the taxable profit in the same period of the previous year. The idea was even welcomed by the Minister of Economy, but never went ahead.