The supertax on banking bonuses could result in £2.5 billion being generated for the Treasury, a new survey has discovered
Ahead of the general election the government would see a large windfall, according to the Financial Times' survey of 16 global banks.
The anticipated total generated by the larger bank bonus pool is £1.5 billion more than was originally expected.
It is even greater than the amount predicted by UK chancellor Alistair Darling who expected £550 million would be generated when he introduced a 50 per cent one-off tax on bankers' bonuses that exceeded £25,000.
Government insiders expect Mr Darling will reveal he plans to use the extra money generated for small targeted measures to support the recovery in the upcoming budget, or to help reduce Britain's record budget deficit.
The UK and France are the major economies to impose a special bonus tax. Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC are among the banks that have publicly disclosed their bonus tax expenses.
