Osborne says he understands people's anger over baker's bonuses. "It would have been better if, when we were bailing the banks out, we had secured something from the banks in return. Unfortunately I was not chancellor at the time," he said. Fair enough, but putting a tax on all banks isn't the same as running the banks that are actually owned by the tax payers and controlling bonuses that way.
"Oh but we need to pay bonuses to attract the staff". Not so, RBS and Lloyds always were staffed by bozos with nowhere else to go, so it doesn't matter what they get paid.
But again we have the BBC operating in full anti-banker, anti Tory mode: "Banks will begin to announce the value of their bonuses pots next week, with total payouts expected to top £6bn - almost eight times the additional tax being raised."
Yeah, right eight times the additional amount of tax compared to what was paid last year, but what kind of statistic is that.thebank levy will raise £2.5 bn even after the reduction in corporation tax. Add to that the 50% tax on bonuses and that makes £6.5 bn to the government, £4bn, and even then the bankers get most of thates in bank shares while the government gets paid in hard cash. There really is no pleasing the BBC.
2 comments:
Even by your standards, the statistics you rattle off in this piece are nonsense.
Where is the £4bn 50% bonus tax number from?
The government gets the proceeds from the share sales, as will the bankers when the deferal periods end, if they choose to sell.
The bank levy is merely being brought forward by one year in line with the corp tax rate going down, hardly a coup.
Why did you stop writing about interesting financial issues to become a Conservative Party cheerleader blog?
"Where is the £4bn 50% bonus tax number from?"
50% (the marginal tax rate for most high earners) of £8bn.
"Why did you stop writing about interesting financial issues to become a Conservative Party cheerleader blog?"
Because most of the financial issues have disappeared, and finance is now mostly a long hard slog, oh, and because the current government has a semblance of common sense about it. Not everything they do is right but they have a far greater grasp of reality than the £170 billion deficit merchants that preceeded them.
The only hope for our children is at least 10 and preferably 20 years of sensible government to clear up the mess left behind by the last bunch of con-men.
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