Bonus windfall tax boffin to set up NGO for City
PROFESSOR Stefano Harney, the academic who recently led a call for a windfall tax on City bonuses, has founded a new non-governmental organisation (NGO) dedicated to keeping tabs on the City.
The organisation, called “Finance Watch”, will produce research on transparency, accountability and ethics in the City, as well as suggestions for reform in these areas.
Harney, a professor at Queen Mary, University of London’s business school, said: “Although we have NGOs monitoring sweatshops and wetlands all over the world, we have not one civil society organisation keeping an eye on the City.”
Last month, City figures slammed the idea of a windfall tax on bonuses, floated by Harney and 13 other professors in a letter to The Guardian.
The academics said the money raised should be injected into public services, to repay taxpayers for the government billions used to bail out the banks in the crisis.