Tuesday newspaper round-up: Property tax, Amazon, Novo Nordisk
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Tuesday 19 Aug 2025
(Sharecast News) - The Treasury is considering a new tax on the sale of homes worth more than £500,000 as a step towards a radical overhaul of stamp duty and council tax, the Guardian has been told. As the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, prepares the ground for tax rises in this autumn's budget, senior ministers have tasked officials to study how a new "proportional" property tax could be implemented and model its impact before reporting back to ministers, who have been briefed on the proposals. - Guardian
David Cameron's "bonfire of the quangos" decision to abolish England's council spending watchdog has left a broken system that is costing taxpayers more money than it was promised to save. In a highly critical report, academics at the University of Sheffield said the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised savings of £100m a year by abolishing the Audit Commission. - Guardian
Amazon has been accused of driving up prices for Britons in a new lawsuit seeking to secure refunds for 45 million UK shoppers. The tech giant is facing a new class action lawsuit over allegations that it stopped sellers from lowering their prices on their own websites below the price at which they were selling on Amazon. The Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO), a non-profit, claims this policy stops "healthy price competition" between websites, meaning that UK shoppers are forced to pay higher fees when buying online. - Telegraph
The maker of Ozempic is halving the price of its weight-loss jabs in the US after Donald Trump demanded cheaper drugs for Americans. Novo Nordisk said it was slashing the cost of Ozempic, a diabetes jab which is used to slim down, to $499 (£369) a month - around half the $1,000 standard list price. The Danish drug giant said it had also struck a deal with healthcare company GoodRx to make Wegovy, its obesity jab, available at the same price across more than 70,000 retail pharmacies nationwide. - Telegraph
One of Britain's wealthiest businessmen privately warned the prime minister that other industries would be watching the government's policies with "intense interest" when making investment decisions as he lobbied for urgent support for the ailing bioethanol industry. George Weston, the billionaire chief executive of the Associated British Foods conglomerate, which last week announced the closure of the UK's biggest bioethanol plant, personally lobbied Sir Keir Starmer a day after Britain's trade pact with the United States was announced in May. - The Times
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