Bank executive says higher bank taxes could jeopardise the firm's £3 billion Canary Wharf headquarters and drive capital out of Britain
JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon (pictured right) has cautioned the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, against raising taxes on banks, warning the move could put at risk the firm's planned £3 billion London headquarters and push investment overseas.
Dimon, who has previously criticised the UK's bank surcharge, made the remarks on the Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, recorded last week and released on Tuesday.
"It may sound great, 'tax the banks', but it's $5 billion that my shareholders paid on that extra tax," Dimon said. "I just think things like that have adverse consequences."
Banks operating in the UK currently pay a 28% corporation tax rate — three percentage points above the standard rate — alongside a separate levy applied to their UK balance sheets.
"I would be very cautious if I was a government thinking that penalising any company out of the ordinary is a good thing for that country," Dimon said. "I always thought [the UK bank levy] was wrong.
"JP Morgan did not damage the UK and I called the chancellor at the time. [We] did not damage the UK. We're a great citizen there. We hire people there. We want to be bigger there."
Dimon approved construction of a 279,000 square metre tower in Canary Wharf last year, hours after the banking sector was passed over for additional levies in former chancellor Rachel Reeves's autumn Budget. The development is set to serve as JP Morgan's UK headquarters and accommodate more than half of its 23,000-strong UK workforce.
In May, Dimon indicated he might abandon the project if Starmer were succeeded by a Labour leader hostile to the financial sector. He repeated that warning in the podcast, saying he remained uncertain about the tower's future should the Burnham government proceed with bank tax increases.
Asked whether he would reverse the decision to build in Canary Wharf, he said: "That's a binary decision… I don't know what I would do. I thought Rachel [Reeves] did a great job by the way. I want London to be a happy home for a long time."
He added that the UK "should have a competitive tax system… that is consistent and conducive to capital formation that will drive the growth of a country."
The Trades Union Congress has argued that reversing the previous Conservative government's reduction to the bank surcharge could generate £9 billion over four years, and trade unions have been pressing Burnham to increase taxes on wealth.
"If you have an uncompetitive tax system, capital leaves your country," Dimon said. "And if capital leaves your country, it goes to other countries. And you see that now. How many companies have delisted from London in the last couple of years? I wouldn't want to see that if I was running a country."
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