Here are the stories making the business headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
UK inflation expected to fall to 6.5% in September
Headline inflation eased again in September, official figures are expected to show this week, while pay growth is slowing.
Economists polled by Refinitiv expect the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to say annual inflation fell slightly to 6.5% in September from 6.7% in August. However, that is still well above the Bank of England’s 2% target.
A steeper fall in prices growth was likely until oil prices jumped, with the cost of a barrel of Brent crude up $10 over the month to a peak of $97 at the end of September. It has since fallen back to $90.
Motorists in the south-east have seen petrol prices at the pumps rise above £1.56 a litre and the cost of a litre of diesel increase to £1.60, according to the AA motoring group.
Read more in today's Guardian.
Alarming rise in staff leaving NHS pensions
Records numbers of workers are leaving the NHS pension scheme amid the cost of living crisis.
More than 75,000 NHS staff pulled out of the scheme, considered one of the most generous in the country, in the last financial year, including 25,000 aged under 30, according to data obtained by The Times under freedom of information laws.
The figure is an increase of 67% over the past four years, or 40% once a growing workforce is taken into account. More than 10% of those with less than £20,000 in pensionable pay opted out.
The NHS scheme, despite having a moved from a final salary to a career average model, represents a far more attractive structure, with higher employer contribution, than almost any private pension scheme.
The government contribution is 20.68% of earnings and the employee contribution rate is a sliding scale depending on pensionable pay, from 5.1% for earnings under £13,246 to 13.5% for those on more than £75,633.
Landlords paying an extra £5.5bn a year as mortgage rates surge
Landlords are paying an extra £5.5billion a year to their banks following a surge in mortgage rates, data shows.
Buy-to-let investors are now collectively paying £15billion a year in mortgage interest, a 58% jump since November 2021 when the Bank of England began raising interest rates, analysis by Hamptons shows.
In the year to August alone, landlords’ mortgage interest payments increased by 40%, meaning they are paying an extra £4.3billion in interest.
By contrast, falling interest rates between 2015 and 2021 meant landlords’ mortgage interest bills fell by 3%, despite the fact that they took on 43% more debt over the period.
Rising interest rates are eroding buy-to-let profit margins fast. In August, mortgaged landlords’ borrowing bills consumed 37% of their rental income, up from 28% a year ago. This calculation does not account for their tax and maintenance costs.
UK lost out on £2bn in tax in 2021 as big tech shifted profits abroad, claim campaigners
The UK might have missed out on as much as £2bn in tax in 2021 from big tech companies shifting their profits elsewhere, according to an estimate by a group campaigning for greater tax transparency.
That Guardian reports that seven of the biggest US-headquartered tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Google owner Alphabet, are estimated to have paid £750m in UK corporation tax and the digital sales tax, compared with £2.8bn in estimated tax due had profits not been routed elsewhere, according to TaxWatch, a campaign group.
Big multinational companies often have complicated structures using different subsidiaries around the world. In many cases that makes it near impossible for observers to calculate how much tax they have paid in the UK, and whether the amounts paid align with the amount of activity in the UK.