British taxpayers set to lose 31 bln stg on RBS rescue -watchdog

LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) - Britain's fiscal watchdog on Wednesday said it increased its estimate of the likely loss to taxpayers from the 2008 rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland to 31 billion pounds ($40.83 billion), up 2.4 billion pounds from October.

The increase came mainly from four more months of servicing debt on the bailout, Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility said on the same day finance minister Philip Hammond set out his latest budget plans.

The widening loss to Britain's government from the bailout came despite RBS paying a special dividend on its annual profits in 2018 for the first time in a decade. ($1 = 0.7592 pounds) (Reporting by Lawrence White, editing by Louise Heavens)