UK slaps one-off tax on oil and gas giants to ease the pain of soaring household energy bills

UK slaps one-off tax on oil and gas giants to ease the pain of soaring household energy bills

LONDON — U.K. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has imposed a windfall tax on oil and gas majors as the government scrambles to alleviate the country's worsening cost-of-living crisis. The measures come a day after a into lockdown parties at Downing Street and amid sustained pressure on the ruling Conservative government to do more as soaring inflation pushes up the price of everything from food to fuel. "The oil and gas sector is making extraordinary profits not as the result of recent changes to risk-taking or innovation or efficiency but as the result of surging global commodity prices driven in part by Russia's war," Sunak told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Thursday. "And for that reason, I am sympathetic to the argument to tax those profits fairly," Sunak said, prompting jeers from opposition lawmakers. Sunak said the government is imposing a temporary targeted energy profits levy with a so-called "investment allowance" to incentivize oil and gas firms to re-invest their profits. The new levy will be charged on the profits of oil and gas companies at a rate of 25%, before being phased out when commodity prices return to more normal levels. The decision to impose a windfall tax