Dimon threatens £3bn London HQ over UK bank tax hikes
JP Morgan's chief executive has warned that raising taxes on banks could jeopardise the firm's planned £3bn London headquarters, highlighting the risk of capital flight from the UK market.
Jamie Dimon has issued a direct warning to Andy Burnham that any move to increase taxes on banks could derail JP Morgan’s planned £3bn headquarters in London. The chief executive of the world's largest bank said such a move would drive investment out of Britain.
The bank approved the 279,000 sq metre Canary Wharf tower last year, mere hours after former chancellor Rachel Reeves spared the sector from higher levies in her autumn budget. The development is designed to house more than half of JP Morgan's 23,000 UK staff. In May, Dimon first floated the possibility of abandoning the project if Keir Starmer were replaced by a new Labour prime minister who was hostile to banks.
UK lenders currently face a 28% corporation tax rate, compared to the standard 25%, alongside a separate balance sheet levy. Dimon has long criticised this surcharge, noting his shareholders have paid $5bn in extra taxes under the regime. “JP Morgan did not damage the UK... We’re a great citizen there. We hire people there. We want to be bigger there,” he said.
Speaking on the Master Investor Podcast, Dimon described the headquarters decision as binary. “I don’t know what I would do. I thought Rachel [Reeves] did a great job by the way. I want London to be a happy home for a long time,” he said. However, he stressed that penalising specific industries carries severe risks.
“I would be very cautious if I was a government thinking that penalising any company out of the ordinary is a good thing for that country,” Dimon warned. He argued the UK needs a tax system “that is consistent and conducive to capital formation that will drive the growth of a country.”
Dimon framed the bank tax issue as a symptom of a wider competitiveness problem for London. “If you have an uncompetitive tax system, capital leaves your country. And if capital leaves your country, it goes to other countries,” he said. He pointed to the recent wave of corporate delistings from the London market as evidence of this capital flight.
Trade unions argue the sector can afford to pay more, with the Trades Union Congress claiming £9bn could be raised over four years by reversing a previous Conservative cut to the bank surcharge. For investors and market professionals, however, Dimon’s intervention underscores the direct line between fiscal policy and major capital allocation decisions in the UK.
