Martin Flanagan: Bankers facing double jeopardy as levy will risk multiple taxation

Let's face it: as 500,000 public sector jobs are set to go, welfare benefits are savaged, funding for town halls is slashed, and people have to work longer and pay more for their pensions, who outside the sector is going to protest at a permanent extra tax on the banks rather than Labour's one-off attack on their ingrained bonus culture?

Osborne has announced some 81bn of cuts. In that context, 2.5bn a year from the banks as both punishment and incentive to borrow more sensibly does not look that excessive.

In fact, the unions believe it is nowhere near enough, and certainly well short of what a Robin Hood tax on banks' financial transactions would be likely to raise.

But it is not being an apologist for the banks to recognise that they have a point about a current lack of clarity about how the levy would work.

In particular, when global balance sheets are involved, as they will be with the big UK banks, it is not currently clear how to avoid the danger of banks being taxed more than once, perhaps several times, in different jurisdictions on the same activities.

This would be patently unfair, even for an industry that has brought a lot of its troubles down on its own head.

And as the British Bankers' Association says, there is no international consensus on how banking activities should be taxed, with the G20 split on the issue.

In addition to the banking levy, the government says it will work with other countries to "explore the costs and benefits of a Financial Activities Tax on profits and remuneration".

But given the first stages of the banking crisis came in 2007 with Northern Rock, reaching their nadir in 2008, it is clearly not easy to get a level banking playing field internationally.

Bluntly, there is general dissatisfaction and concern, but differing attitudes on how far to go in the regulatory sphere to put things right.

Amid far more complex issues such as the debate on whether retail and investment banking activities should be split, currently being studied by Britain's Independent Commission on Banking, the banking levy looks relatively straightforward, do-able and desirable.

But more detail is needed to allay concerns that banks with significant overseas operations are effectively penalised twice or more for the same banking activities.

Big beast of the high street back in business and raring to go

IT'S rare when a company that has not had a brilliant record in recent times says it might favour a two-pronged policy of reinstating the dividend and hitting the acquisition trail simultaneously.

But Debenhams, Britain's second-biggest department store group, said yesterday that its cash flow was now robust enough to consider this dual route in 2011.

Chief executive Rob Templeman said this would have the virtue of going down well with most of the firm's shareholder base, with some investors preferring more acquisitions and some plumping for a restoration of the divi in these financially challenging times.

The group's 12.3 million purchase of Magasin du Nord in Denmark last year was well-received by the City, which saw it as the business diversifying its geographic revenue base.

Templeman has made no secret of his desire to do more deals in western Europe, with more Nordic deals particularly favoured.

Apart from its 167 stores in Britain, Ireland and Denmark, Debenhams also has 60 franchised outlets in 23 countries. It is clear that, even without Britain's economic difficulties, the company believes the international dimension will be increasingly important to drive earnings.

Yesterday's sharp jump in annual profits to 151m from 125.2m was impressive, as was the 10 per cent-plus jump in revenues.

Templeman said Debenhams was investing 130m in capital expenditure in the current year, but still had the cash flow to consider both the previously-flagged reinstatement of the divi and acquisitions.

It does all seem a bit of a rebound from a largely unimpressive return to the stock market in 2006, when the shares were valued at 195p.

Even with yesterday's near-7 per cent bounce in the stock, the shares are still only trading at 76.5p.But Debenhams has been more surefooted of late, particularly as it has reversed its previous strategy of opening concessions in its stores. Much of that space has now been turned over to its own products.

It looks more on the front foot than it has for some time.