Windfall Taxes vs Tax Cuts: Healey's Budget Balancing Act

Chancellor John Healey is weighing windfall taxes on banks and oil companies as "low-hanging fruit" to rebuild a partly-eroded £22.7bn fiscal buffer. The move could plug a £4.7bn funding gap for defence and cost-of-living pledges, with Treasury officials eyeing record profits from firms like XTX Markets, where founder Alex Gerko earned a record £895m in 2025 — a 31% jump from the year before. For a government scrambling for revenue, taxing super-profits is politically...