Oldham’s Liberal Democrat Councillors are proposing a motion to the next full meeting of Oldham Council (Wednesday 24 March) calling on the Government to introduce a new tax on the excess profits generated by online traders during the COVID-19 Lockdown.

The Leader of the Opposition and the Liberal Democrat Group, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, is proposing the motion, backed by his colleague, Councillor Diane Williamson.  Commenting Councillor Sykes said:  “It seems singularly unfair that whilst high street businesses have spent the last year suffering under Lockdown, either being entirely closed or under significant restrictions, larger national and international businesses who have benefited from online shopping and home deliveries, and made bumper profits, are not paying their way in terms of taxation.”

“The Liberal Democrats believe that the government should introduce an excess profits tax on these bumper profits to raise more revenue to pay for our NHS and other hollowed-out public services.   In the past, during both world wars, the government introduced such a tax on war profiteers.  For the British people and government, the COVID-19 pandemic has represented the greatest immediate threat we have faced in over seventy years.  It has represented a situation akin to a war and those retailers who have most profited from it can afford to pay.”

The motion submitted to the next Council meeting (Wednesday 24 March) reads:

A Tax on Excess Online Profits

Council notes that whilst smaller High Street non-food retail outlets have been forcibly closed, and are facing business failure, because of the COVID-19 Lockdown, larger national businesses and multi-national businesses offering on-line products have thrived, reporting bumper profits.

Council notes that recent proposals from the UN and the EU are working to establish an international consensus on business taxation, to minimise profit-shifting for the purpose of avoiding corporation tax, but that these proposals are not likely to be introduced in time to have any impact on the excess online profits that some companies have made off the back of the coronavirus epidemic.

Raising a bespoke tax on excess online profits has precedent in the UK, and Council expresses its disappointment that the Chancellor has not yet introduced such a tax and believes that if we are, as the Prime Minister claims, ‘all in this together’, then the excessive profits of such on-line businesses should be subjected to a greater level of tax, and that the revenue raised employed to support our hollowed out public services (local government, schools and health) and the financial recovery of our High Street retailers.

Council resolves to ask the Chief Executive to write to:

• The Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, urging him to introduce such a tax as soon as possible as one means to ensure that we are ‘all in this together’.
• Our three local MPs, the Greater Manchester Mayor and the Leaders of the other nine AGMA authorities to seek their support for such a tax.

Proposed by: Councillor Howard Sykes                                   

Seconded by: Councillor Diane Williamson