Daily Mirror (UK)): THE TAXMAN SHOULD MAKE FATCATS SHELL OUT: “There's never a shortage of cash when one of the top brass is forced to admit a mistake or is caught with their fingers in the till. Shell's chairman Sir Philip Watts was forced to quit last year, after it emerged that the firm had misled the City about the size of its oil reserves. He left with a £1million pay-off and £580,000-a-year pension.” (ShellNews.net) 7 Feb 05
By Clinton Manning, Business Editor
Published by the Daily Mirror 4 Feb 05
IT'S enough to make your blood boil. In the three minutes it takes to fill your car with £50 of petrol, Shell will have rung up another £53,000 profit.
The oil giant made a mind-boggling £9.4billion last year - the largest ever recorded by a British company.
But Shell's shameless directors may not be able to make that proud boast for long.
As early as next week, arch-rival BP may reveal it has turned black gold into even richer fortunes.
Then comes HSBC, which is highly likely to wrestle its way back to the top of the greed league, with experts forecasting profits of up to £11billion.
The bumper profits will also, of course, trigger a series of boardroom bonanzas.
The fat cats in charge of these empires have a licence to print their own money.
In many cases, they will pocket more in a year than most of their workers will earn in a lifetime.
So it's no wonder that among the howls of protest yesterday were demands for a windfall tax on Shell's obscene profits.
No lesser figure than Labour MP Martin O'Neill, chairman of the Trade & Industry Select Committee, branded its profits "more than excessive". What's more, he pointed out that with the oil price sky-rocketing to an all-time high of $50 a barrel, Shell could barely fail to make a fortune.
"In the past year, the price of oil and gas has been at such high levels that just by going to bed, they are waking up much richer men through no effort of their own," he said.
Shell, together with other fuel giants such as British Gas, were guilty of driving another 200,000 people into fuel poverty, he claims.
This means they spend more than £1 of every £10 they earn each week on heating their homes and keeping the water hot.
UNLESS the oil barons volunteer to return some of their cash mountain to such disadvantaged people, the government would consider slapping a windfall tax on them.
Labour has done it before. It imposed such a levy on the privatised utilities after Tony Blair's 1997 landslide victory.
That raised more than £5.2billion and was used to help pay for Labour's New Deal initiative, designed to help the jobless.
It hit a range of firms, such as British Gas, British Energy, water and electricity firms.
With many of Britain's biggest outfits now making as much in a single second as the average worker takes home each week surely it is time to do it again.
A single day's profit from Shell - £25million - would be enough to pay the wages of more than 1,600 nurses for a year.
Twenty days' profits would be enough to pay for a new hospital. But it's not just Shell or the oil firms that are in the firing line. Imagine the boost for public services if the 20 most profitable firms in Britain were targeted.
Many banks are deeply unpopular. They are making colossal profits while providing what many regard as a poor service.
Much of that profit has been raked in through unscrupulous lending and sky-high credit card charges, driving people deeper and deeper in debt.
But there is another side to the coins flooding into the coffers of big business...
Shell's supremos would argue they pay huge sums in corporate tax - money used to support Gordon Brown's spending on schools and hospitals.
The more the firm thrives, the bigger the profits and the more it pays to shareholders, which include pension funds.
In short, a big chunk - £5billion this year in Shell's case - goes to benefit you and me.
THE firm's success also provides thousands of largely well-paid jobs. Those workers are taxed, providing more spending power and taxation to boost the economy.
The oil barons would also argue that it is not them ripping off millions of motorists.
Yes, British drivers may pay the highest petrol prices in Europe but before the Chancellor whacks on the tax, UK petrol is actually the cheapest in the EU.
Critics of the oil firms undoubtedly have a point when they say any fool could make a killing when oil prices shoot up.
If hostility in the Middle East pushes the price of a barrel up by $1, Shell makes around £250million a year in extra profit.
But what can go up so easily can also go down - again quite possibly due to circumstances beyond the firm's control.
Finding new oil and gas supplies is also a costly business so these companies argue they need deep pockets.
But the astonishing fact is that the masters of the universe running these vast corporations always seem to find the money when they need it.
Banks such as Barclays and HSBC have spent vast sums building towering new headquarters and on glossy TV ads.
There's never a shortage of cash when one of the top brass is forced to admit a mistake or is caught with their fingers in the till.
Shell's chairman Sir Philip Watts was forced to quit last year, after it emerged that the firm had misled the City about the size of its oil reserves.
He left with a £1million pay-off and £580,000-a-year pension. The firm paid another £520,000 to finance chief Judy Boynton, who was also implicated.
Such rewards for failure and the often ruthless treatment of customers mean that while profits for these firms may be sky high, their currency in the eyes of customers is at rock bottom.
There can be little doubt that a windfall tax would be hugely popular. Labour should put it in its manifesto. The party can be sure it's one policy the Tories won't copy - and it would be a massive vote winner.