Jamie Dimon and John Healey meet Wednesday amid UK bank tax speculation

The UK’s four biggest lenders generated £200bn in pre-tax profits over five years

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan, is set to meet UK Chancellor John Healey on Wednesday to argue against any increase in bank taxation in the government’s October 28 budget, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

The Guardian reported that the meeting comes amid speculation that Healey is considering a windfall tax on banks and oil companies for his first budget.

UK lenders already pay a corporation tax rate of 28%, higher than the standard 25% rate, along with a separate surcharge on their UK balance sheets.

The UK’s four biggest lenders — HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group — generated £200 billion in pre-tax profits over the past five years, largely off the back of rising interest rates. UK banks together paid an estimated £43.3 billion in tax for the financial year ending in March 2025, according to a report commissioned by the industry body UK Finance.

In August, Dimon told Healey by telephone that higher taxes could hit jobs, citing a decline in finance roles in New York that he attributed to the city’s tax regime.

Dimon was among a group of bank leaders who successfully pressed the previous government against raising bank taxes ahead of Rachel Reeves’ budget last year. He later announced plans for a 3 million square foot tower in London’s Canary Wharf district, attaching a condition: a “continuing positive business environment in the UK,” he said.

In May of this year, The Guardian reported, he went further, saying he could scrap the £3 billion tower — projected to serve as JP Morgan’s UK headquarters and house more than half of its roughly 23,000-strong UK workforce — if Prime Minister Keir Starmer were replaced by a Labour leader hostile to banks.

The Guardian reported that Andy Burnham has not publicly commented on a bank tax. The Trades Union Congress and the campaign group Positive Money have called for higher bank levies, arguing the revenue could help cover rising household bills as part of Burnham’s cost-of-living drive.