How you can do your bit to distort the UK economy

As the Budget approaches, Merryn Somerset Webb outlines a few things you should think about doing before George Osborne shakes up the tax regime.

As the Budget approaches, there is a non stop clamour from almost all sides for new taxes of one kind or another.

Some people want a tycoon tax. Some want a mansion tax. Some want a higher top rate tax for those earning over £150,000 - or perhaps over £1m. Some want more VAT, some want less VAT, and some want to see a new tax on universal benefits.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.