Gas and electricity bosses told 'give back profits'

[Doctor Cynic]

Source: Torygraph

The heads of the biggest gas and electricity companies are being ordered by the Government to hand over part of their multi-billion pound profits - or face a new windfall tax.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt the chief executives of the utility giants have been summoned to Downing Street and given a dressing-down over the soaring sums being made from millions of customers.

They are being told that, unless they agree to subsidise a new nationwide "fuel poverty" scheme aimed at the 4.5 million poorest households, a levy will be put on their profits. It is understood that the fuel poverty programme is to be unveiled by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, as part of the Budget on March 12.

The Government has moved to curtail what is increasingly seen as "excessive profiteering" by the utilities industry, with customers having to pay soaring household gas and electricity bills.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/02/npower102.xml

[aquart]

1. That's the British government, not ours. Never ours.

[angstlessk]

2. not as long as oil men are in the administration..n/t

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Yeah, I knew that couldn't be from the U.S.

[Divine Discontent]

4. sometimes I wonder who learned the most from the American Revolution...

the British people or us....

[tom_paine]

5. No contest at this point: The British over us, who are the mental equivalent of the 1930s Germans.

No contest. We are the generations most unworthy of freedom that have ever lived in America, which is why the Bushies have so easily stolen it.

[Divine Discontent]

9. agreed

:cry:

[Voice for Peace]

6. We could use some of that! My gas & electricity bills have tripled

in only a few years' time.

[Dr.Phool]

7. What did they expect a few years ago?

When Blair sold off the state owned utilities to the likes of Enron & Company?

[defendandprotect]

8. Well, wait . . . Carter put a "Windfall Profits Tax" on the oil companies . . .

after their run at a fake shortage --- which everyone believed at the time --- !!!

Why not now ---

Isn't $36 BILLION profited by Exxon Mobil last year a bit of a windfall????

And they're paying less tax on their profits than most citizens pay --- !!!