The Green Party of England and Wales is calling for a 38% windfall tax on the profits of big banks to support small and medium-sized businesses.
Leader Zack Polanski said the tax would be applied to UK profits of more than £800m and be used to cut tax bills for a million smaller companies.
The idea was floated by the campaign group Positive Money, which estimated it would raise £19bn a year.
When a similar idea was raised last year, the trade body UK Finance said banks already paid both a corporation tax surcharge and a bank levy.
Polanski has previously claimed banks are ripping off customers and suggested they should pay “a bit more tax” – but this is the first time the Greens have put numbers on the policy.
He said the money would be “a lifeline” for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), cutting up to £10,500 from their National Insurance bills by doubling the Employment Allowance.
“Small businesses lie at the heart of our communities,” he said.
“The large banks are cashing in on the backs of the small businesses who are the real innovators and creators, and profiteering from chaos and misery while ordinary people struggle.
“Our plans would give a lifeline to more than a million SMEs who will be able to employ more people and add to their communities and our economy in a way that the obscene bonus pay-outs of the big banks do not.”
Polanski claimed the UK’s biggest banks are regularly making record-breaking profits, not from improved services or products, but from high interest rates set by the Bank of England in an attempt to curb inflation.
A Labour Party spokesperson said the government was already working on a renaissance for Britain’s high streets.
“Backing small businesses right across the country is a key part of that and, while others talk, that’s what Labour is already doing,” they said.
“The Greens have stood in the way of many of Labour’s changes, instead offering unrealistic solutions or unfunded spending pledges.
“Meanwhile Labour is cutting business rates for nearly 32,000 small businesses, devolving power to make sure local firms have the workforce they need to thrive, and cutting transport costs to get more customers into our high street shops.”
