The chancellor is set to use this week's pre-Budget report to step up his drive against corporate tax avoidance.

Gordon Brown will use his statement to MPs on Thursday to crack down on the flouting of disclosure requirements, according to the FT.

With the public finances tightening the Treasury is determined to improve the proportion of taxes owed to it that the Inland Revenue actually receives.

But Brown is expected to freeze fuel duty for the remainder of the financial year.

In a bid to encourage saving the government is also set to provide new incentives for poorer people to open and use bank accounts while banks could be told to give unclaimed assets to charity.

In an article for Newsweek magazine in the US, the chancellor pays tribute to the American economic model but says: "The coming decade can be Britain's decade."