The Daily Mail has covered the new TJN report on unitary tax and how it would impact on HSBC and Barclays. And, in the process they’ve got feedback from both banks. According to the Mail: A spokesman said: ‘HSBC paid £6.1billion in tax globally last year, which demonstrates that we do not employ a strategy to
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Since 2009, HSBC and Barclays bank may well have underpaid UK corporation tax to the tune of £2.6 billion. This figure represents the difference between the tax the banks actually paid and what would have been due had they been taxed under what’s called a unitary taxation system. The data’s in a new report I
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As the FT notes this morning: Barclays should lower warped pay levels, end the bank’s “entitlement culture” and usher in a spirit of “transparency and candour” if it is to win back trust, according to a long-awaited review of the bank’s flawed culture and values. Anthony Salz, the City lawyer-turned-Rothschild investment banker who on Wednesday published
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The Guardian business web site tells us a lot about banking this morning:   So, Barclays were bastards, RBS were allegedly conmen, HBOS were incompetent and Lloyds were mugs. And it’s not just here. As the FT notes:   So Deutsche are hiding the truth. Oh, and then add the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists:   So, we’ve now reached the
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I never expected an internally appointed review of Barclays to greatly rock the boat, and the Salz review doesn’t. This is all it concludes on tax: Barclays appears to have been insensitive to changing political and public expectations around tax and to the UK regulators’ expectations on openness and compliance with the spirit of the rules. In the
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I have just begun to dip into the Salz report on Barclays’ investment banking division. I will not pretend to have read it all, but a paragraph (I’ve split it for ease of reading) just jumped out, talking about the role of employees, and their silence in the Barclays structure. It says: Having a voice at work and
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I write yesterday about the pay at Barclays. Then a commentator on the blog talked about the impact of a bonus cap at Barclays. I didn’t agree with her calculations, but accepted her premise that Barclays need not pay more than £500,000 a year (after all, anyone, anywhere can live on that – in luxury).
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Barclays has published a table on the remuneration of its employees in its accounts this year. This is it (page 96): I’ve reworked that data like this: (click on image to enlarge) What does this say? Well, half of Barclays employee’s earn no more than UK median pay despite the prosperity of this sector. And just 2.6%
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These are Barclays’ tax principles, according to their presentation made today: (Click on the file for a bigger version) Are you convinced that means an end to tax avoidance? After all, tax authorities expect tax avoidance. And tax avoidance is generally accepted - as the proposed General Anti-Abuse Rule explicitly recognises. And Google has, for example, said its planning supports genuine commercial activity
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