Wednesday newspaper round-up: Wealth tax, Primark, Google and Facebook

The government has been urged to launch a one-off wealth tax on millionaire households to raise up to £260bn in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as the crisis damages Britain’s public finances and exacerbates inequality. The Wealth Tax Commission – a group of leading tax experts and economists brought together by the London School of Economics and Warwick University to examine the case for a levy on assets – said targeting the richest in society would be the fairest and most efficient way to raise taxes in response to the pandemic. - Guardian

The government’s furlough scheme should cover workers infected with Covid-19 to prevent the spread of the disease by people who cannot afford to self-isolate, according to a leading thinktank. With Britain’s statutory sick pay the lowest of any advanced economy, the Resolution Foundation said a more generous and easier to administer system should be put in place or the multibillion-pound vaccination programme was at risk of being undermined. - Guardian

Factories are shutting, food could rot on the dockside and Christmas presents may go undelivered as a perfect storm of Covid chaos and Brexit stockpiling batters the UK’s port system. Honda warned on Tuesday that it could be forced to temporarily close its Swindon factory as soon as today after slow-burning problems at ports and the Channel Tunnel exploded into the open.- Telegraph

Britain is desperate for high streets to be saved and renewed government support through a VAT break, an extension of the business rates holiday and the relaxation of Sunday trading laws could start the recovery, according to research by Primark. A report by Public First, the policy and research company commissioned by the fashion retailer, has found that people are worried that their towns will fail to make it through the lockdowns. They remain nervous about going shopping and the pandemic has pushed many in-store shoppers online for the first time, although that could reverse. - The Times

Google and Facebook could face fines running into billions of pounds under a new regime to police the digital economy. The Competition and Markets Authority is demanding powers to stop large technology companies from crushing emerging rivals and harming consumers. Companies that deliberately breach a new statutory code of conduct should face fines of as much 10 per cent of their global turnover, according to the watchdog. - The Times