This is unbelievable. Shell now takes more money from British taxpayers than it pays in taxes. 

While we’ve been deep in austerity and struggling to get by, George Osborne has been handing fossil fuel companies ever bigger tax breaks and subsidies. Last year, Osborne handed Shell £85 million more for extracting oil and gas than the company paid in taxes and fees to the government.

While the US and China are going in the opposite direction and working on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies altogether, the UK can't be the only country shelling out public money to Big Oil. 

After the Panama Papers' revelations that the world's wealthy elite are avoiding billions in taxes by hiding money in offshore accounts, we can't let big companies get away with any more tax breaks -- corporations should pay their fair share. 

Sign the petition telling George Osborne to scrap the tax breaks for Big Oil!

Since becoming Chancellor, George Osborne has handed Big Oil a string of tax breaks and subsidies, including the tax relief for decommissioning oil and gas rigs that contributed to Shell’s windfall last year. As a result, the UK now forks out an outrageous £27 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies -- enough to pay for more than a million NHS nurses.

Shell may be the first oil company to be exposed for receiving more tax handouts than it pays in, but it won’t be the only one. Official forecasts now show that tax revenues from the North Sea are expected to go negative -- meaning the taxpayer will soon be paying out more than we receive from the fossil fuel sector as a whole.

And all of this while Osborne has slashed support for solar power and energy efficiency, saying there isn’t enough money to go round.

Osborne’s support for Big Oil isn’t just unfair. It’s also dangerous -- allowing corporations to keep profiting from climate-destroying oil and gas while renewables companies are driven to bankruptcy. Let’s tell Osborne enough is enough.

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