LONDON — The British government said it would use a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies to help raise funds for direct payments to households, totaling about 15 billion pounds (about $19 billion), to ease the country’s cost-of-living crisis.Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the measures on Thursday as the government has come under increasingly intense pressure to help households with rapidly rising inflation and energy bills. Mr. Sunak said that energy companies had benefited from the surge in global commodity prices, in part driven by the war in Ukraine, and that some of their soaring profits could be used to protect low-income households.Oil and gas companies will be charged a 25 percent tax on their “extraordinary” profits. The tax will be phased out as energy prices return to normal, Mr. Sunak said, but will not last beyond 2025. It will generate £5 billion over the nex …
