Darling: Bank bonus tax failed to hit target

Former chancellor Alistair Darling has admitted his supertax on bankers' bonuses failed to hit home and is unlikely to be repeated, it emerged yesterday.

He said those targeted by the 50 per cent tax, payable by employers on bonuses over 25,000, were too easily able to avoid it.

Darling told a financial services conference: "I think it will be a one-off thing because, frankly, the very people you are after here are very good at getting out of these things and … will find all sorts of imaginative ways of avoiding it in the future."

The Financial Times reported that Darling told the meeting - which took place on Tuesday and was sponsored by Japanese investment bank Nomura - that he had wanted to send a message to the bankers "that we all live in the same world together".

Darling had introduced the bankers' super-tax as part of his final Pre-Budget Report in December.