大象传媒

Is the 28% (or so) Corporation Tax that the Treasury takes from bank's profits (when they return) not ample enough?

When the next Government produce a prospectus to return the state-funded bank's to private control, it will be yours and my pension funds purchasing the lion's share.

So, do you want the profits to be paid in the form of dividends for your future or further tax for the politicians of the day to waste on whatever scheme is flavour of the month?

Heaven knows Gordon really made good provision from the near on one third 'windfalls' he took from the banks in the boom years; didn't he?!

And that tax will be passed on to the account holders of taken out of the shareholder premiums/profits?
And there is a spaceship flying past my window as I type!
Oh look, there goes the witch on her broomstick following closing behind!

if this is true, the tories have just lost my vote. and my membership

mass hysteria is NOT a good foundation for policy

I have come to the conclusion that our Government and the banks are absolutely clueless as to how they are going to repay the astronomical debt they owe us.

We the tax payer will be paying the cost for decades while our supposed experts line their own pockets and hit us twice. We should have let them go bankrupt and took over the decent assets in the fire sale.By keeping them in business they are just rubbing all our noses in it.

Our governments only answer seems to be pile more on the credit card, and hopefully someone somewhere will come up with a plan that we can copy.
So much for being leaders,its noticeable no one has asked Gordon to give any views on Greece's position,seems the EU have disowned him,the sale of continental 12ft barge poles must be at an all time high.

How there have been no cases of false accounting brought against the banks is beyond me, the boards should at least be guilty of dereliction of duty and never be allowed to sit on boards again .

Robert,

Surely a bank with an international footprint could simply migrate their registered operations out of the taxable territory?

This has been standard practice for years, if not decades.

Northern Rock established Granite in the Channel Islands for this express purpose. Private Eye rarely has an issue that does not mention the tax schemes employed by some of the largest companies in the UK.

Unless there is some coercive and concerted international effort, then this initiative is doomed. This is just propaganda otherwise.

You con hear stable doors closing all over the place,congrats to robert preston 2 blogs in 1 night.,Hariet Harman says she if more women were on the boards of RBS or HBOS then the crisis would be avertid .It might have been better if any of them had banking qualifications between them.this is not a gender issue or a race issue it is a competence issue. These people were not up to the job and somebody should have spotted this, the people we trust with our money,the government.I thought i was working for the for the common good but in reality i was paying for somebody else not to work, now i havnt got a job and i dont qualify for council tax because my redundancy was more than 16k.I left school in 1985 when youth unemployment was massive if u got a chance u took it i know people who have never worked and are better off than me through no effort.I used to pay 10k a year in tax but why bother ?

The biggest tax a government could put on the banks is to force them to make payments on the same day with no additional charge. That would reduce their profits, increase the velocity of money around the economy aiding the recovery and indirectly increase the tax take due to increased business activity.

Faster Payments should have been fully implemented by now. They are dragging their feet, and that's because it costs them money at the expense of everybody else.

It's a sound policy, it makes sense and it helps smaller businesses. So obviously it'll never happen.

Neil, regarding faster payments, maybe you should change banks? I used on-line banking to transfer a fairly large amount from Lloyds TSB to Yorkshire Bank and the recipient saw it in their account within 10 minutes!

May 6th will be an excellent opportunity to choose between 3 parties that basically believe the same thing - that big government, big deficit spending and high taxation is the best way to run a declining economy.

Red, blue or yellow? It is sooooooooooooooo exciting!

How much money has the government had out of the banks and their employees over the last decade in the form of income tax, national insurance, VAT, stamp duty and inheritance tax? I would think that corporation tax receipts are not anywhere near as large as these numbers. If Mr Peston could put that number in the public eye it might make it clearer to this country what the benefit has been and will be of having a strong financial sector. Driving these tax receipts overseas is just shooting yourself in the foot.

They are all flailing about like headless chickens.
Clueless ! All of them
Its becoming embarrassing and increasingly more difficult to take these stories seriously
Does anybody think the election will make one iota of difference to the wealth of this country ?

Even if the Conservatives impose tax on Banks, as they should, Banks will not be packing and leaving this country.


Deficit has to be sorted and unless there are substantial receipts by the Treasury, we will be facing long and dark future.

Labour government's borrowing is keeping people under false impression that things are getting better.

We have to face the reality and deal with the deficit before recession gets back to wrap us all in a darker and bigger cloud of despair.

No country in history has got out of recession by borrowing why on earth expect that this government will?

I pressume the government of the day does realise that increasing the taxes payable by the banks will simply be passed on to the bank users, ie the taxpayers. So in order to raise a fund to help out the banks should disaster strike again we are all going to pay up in advance this time.

And you wonder why I avoid paying taxes.

11. At 08:17am on 20 Mar 2010, Alesha Soba wrote:

They are all flailing about like headless chickens.
Clueless ! All of them
Its becoming embarrassing and increasingly more difficult to take these stories seriously
Does anybody think the election will make one iota of difference to the wealth of this country ?

............................................

Normally I find it difficult to agree with your views but on this one you are dead right, not one iota of difference whichever stupid party is voted in.

Every time he opens his mouth Cameron gets closer to pulling off the unthinkable - getting Brown re-elected.

One way or another, the Government is going to have to make ends meet sooner or later. Of course we can sit around, Mickawber-like, and wait for something to turn up (in the form of sustained high rates of (exponential growth): but I'm not holding my breath.

In the absence of growth, the end will only be made to meet by a more or less judicious mix of cuts and higher taxes: the only question being where these should fall (and by how much).

If taxes have to go up then it may make political sense to target the least popular bits of the economy. "I've got a little list" including banks, but why stop there. What about estate agents, lawyers and (whisper who dare) politicians?

This targeting won't work, of course. As someone has already said, the banks are the masters of tax avoidance: and, in any event, the higher taxes are not creating new money - so the punters (pension funds, depositors and/or borrowers) will be made to pay. It is a hypocrisy to pretend that taxes will not be felt by the general public. Taxes are costs and, as costs, they will be passed on. All costs are ultimately paid by the consumer in the price - that's how it works.

When people are busy demanding rights, they forget that they have duty as well.

Only when we fulfil our duty we earn the "right to demand"

When everyone is fulfilling their duty, there is no need to "demand rights" since no "rights" will not be endangered.

Sadly, those who are the loudest in demands, are far too busy taking to give.

They are the first to ask for the heads to roll, and of course never, ever admit any part of responsibility themselves.

Joy of living in modern civilisation, where the only thing that matters is me, me, me!!!

My 20year old endounment policy with one of the top 3 providers has acheaved a massive 1% compound growth over the last 20years (this includes the projected terminal bonus). For the last 3 years they send me a letter stating that even if they acheave 4, 6 or 8% growth per year it will have a short fall. They have no hope of reaching 4%!

All of my pension pots (I have a dozen or so) are growing at or around inflation once you take into account fees. This years statement has told me that i can expect 1/10th of the pension that they were predicting the previous year and that dispite the pot growing over the year.

And now the goverment wants to take even more out of my investments in a new tax.

Im advising my children to get a govement job with a final sal pension as unlike my parents, and having saved 20% of my salary each year in pensions i will be destitute when i retire.

Cameron: 'Tories would tax the banks'
Banks: "and we'll avoid the tax"

Get real. Only little people pay full taxes. (I almost mentioned Ashcroft but that's another thread).

Such moves will have to be undertaken extremely carefully; perhaps with international moves to penalise the dealings of institutions from countries not applying such taxes, to make relocation less desirable.

However, this suggests more politics than economic rationale.

People want to see the banks "punished" so its politically expedient to be seen to do so.
However, its extremely dangerous for Britain with our heavy dependency on financial services.

Its a shame we paid vastly over the odds for the stakes we took in the banking sector (paying far more for institutions that were insolvent without support than they're worth 2 years later is just ridiculous) and charged others too little for the support they were given, providing support re short-term liquidity issues is all well and good; but with nowhere else to go, the banks should have paid massively for the privilege, perhaps that might have helped to emphasise the downside to excessive risk taking.
Instead, badly run operations will still show massive profits if looked at over a medium timescale, with just a couple of years of losses due to the bad debts resulting from their excessive lending.
& then we actually pay the banks to help provide the finance to plug the extra money the country borrowed to bail them out, via QE and govt bond issues.

#4 "How there have been no cases of false accounting brought against the banks is beyond me.."
The figures, especially the valuation of the CDOs, etc were deceptive; but unfortunately complied with the recognised accounting standards at the time as the assets were seen as resellable at those values.
Of course its easy to see that those standards were massively flawed and allowed the banks, who pay the accounting industry extremely well, to show much better performance. Unfortunately although "true and fair view" is often quoted re accounts, accountancy is a business; meaning it has an incentive to meet its clients needs.

#12 "We have to face the reality and deal with the deficit before recession gets back to wrap us all in a darker and bigger cloud of despair."
& historical evidence suggests that achieving this via cost cuts is much more beneficial to the long term prospects of the economy than focusing on tax rises.

And if Lloyds and RBS are still largely in government hands and have returned to profitability does the government pay tax to itself? Sounds Irish to me.

And what about the shareholders some of whom are pensioners trying to grapple with the effects of lower dividends and interest rates on their income?

Also a bank like HSBC will simply move its HQ to somewhere else with inevitable loss of UK jobs.

Can we also tax the speculative gains people made in the property market off the back of the cheap money the banks provided and which continues to be propped up at general taxpayer expense as governments can't be seen to allow this miraculous "wealth creation", without having to work for it undermined?

David Cameron's declaration that his Tories will tax the banks shows just how far the Labour party has moved to the right.

It is a modern tragedy that we have two parties of the right who look after the privileged and the establishment and using their fiefdom's money to hoodwink and subvert popular democracy.

"22. At 09:13am on 20 Mar 2010, Reaper_of_Souls wrote:
Can we also tax the speculative gains people made in the property market off the back of the cheap money the banks provided and which continues to be propped up at general taxpayer expense as governments can't be seen to allow this miraculous "wealth creation", without having to work for it undermined?"

We did tax it (it was called capital gains tax) and it was on a tapered scale from 40 down to 10% depending on how long you kept the asset.

Brown changed it to a flat 18% a few years ago.

Post 6, you and me both! Many of the posters on this and other 大象传媒 blogs are "poor schmucks" like you and I. We obey the rules, pay our taxes and twenty years later we find there is nothing in the system for those of us that play by the rules and do as we were told and the government wonders why people are so angry?

I don't want to rain on Robert's parade as he is obviously on a roll with stories about banks and theoretical banks taxes but out in the real world outside of the Square Mile the business world is facing an epoch defining dispute. I would have thought that the 大象传媒 Business Editor would have been interested in BA and its strike.

Today BA staff are starting the first of two short strikes, the latter of which will mess up the holiday plans of those intending to go away for the first half of the Easter Holidays.

The crux of the issue is that the management want to impose "modern" rules on their staff. BA faces its "Red Robbo" moment and it seems as if Tony Woodley of Unite is intending to miss the lesson Bill Jordan learnt at Longbridge where the workers turned against Red Robbo at an infamous open air mass meeting.

Surely the staff at the front line can see that the current BA business model can't continue to work and unless something is done that sooner rather than later BA will go to the wall unless something major is done?

I wonder whether Messrs Woodley and Simpson at Unite see themselves as Arthur Scargill taking a moral high ground stand against wicked management and unfair imposed conditions and modernisation.

In the real world people have taken no pay rises and even pay cuts to keep jobs and also reductions in terms and conditions as they realise that 80% of what they used to have is better than unemployment. Sorry to be blunt but it is really hard out here in a world of defined contributions rather than defined benefits pensions and having a job is a benefit rather than one that offers very cheap flights and free short break holidays.

Willie Walsh knows that without serious movement by the staff that the airline is dead in the water. If you compare the terms and conditions BA staff have compared to other airlines such as Virgin or at the bottom end Easyjet or Ryannair anyone can see that without major reform BA is going to die.

Have the BA staff not seen the number of empty seats in Business class or the number of promotional deals or "free upgrades" that airlines are having to offer just to try to fill their planes?

Am I really the only one that thinks this is more important business story than a third story re banking in 24 hours?

What's the biggest problem with the UK economy? Well it's not that banks don't pay enough tax but that they (and the rest of their collegues in other parts of the financial services industry) won't provide anything like enough risk equity capital for start-ups, spin-outs and early stage companies.

So - don't tax the banks but force them to contribute more much more risk equity funds not to govt but to companies that understand markets and technologies which of course means few of the existing so called VCs.

"22. At 09:13am on 20 Mar 2010, Reaper_of_Souls wrote:
Can we also tax the speculative gains people made in the property market off the back of the cheap money the banks provided and which continues to be propped up at general taxpayer expense as governments can't be seen to allow this miraculous "wealth creation", without having to work for it undermined?"

The tax system is very kind to buy to leters:

You pay tax only on the profit, so mortgage interest, stamp duty, repairs, legal fees, even some running costs for your car, council tax, and utility bills are valid costs and hence reduce the tax payments. Even if you make improvements to the property some of the cost can also be paid for before tax. And when you sell it you can by including a lot of the bills a second time to reduce the total gain and hence the level CGT due.

Where as house holders have to pay all these "costs" out of taxed income they efectivily come out of untaxed income for buy to leters.

By, bye, I've been missing the pie
Drove heavy with the levy until they were dry
Those good Old Boys still drink their Whiskey and Rye
Singing "this is when we wave you goodbye...."

next contender please!...

The tax would be designed so that banks that take the biggest risks would pay more - because this would be a way of discouraging them from gambling and speculation.

It is very obvious, at least to those that think beyond City and nation limits, that this discussion on a tax by whatever government there will be is a waste of time, just one of those red herrings. Who would stop any bank to transfer those 鈥渂iggest risks鈥� to gambling tables to more favourable areas of this globe? Those are a click away, the losses can stay!

No, unless there is a co-ordinated global effort of the vast majority of all countries to install a Tobin tax and the designated will to defend same there will be no share of the banks, hence no return on the tax payers鈥� investment at all.

Most of us realise that in a cash economy that we need banks to provide support to the economy and not just be there to serve those with the golden ladders and golden troughs.

G Osborne and David Cameron are clearly pro City and while they would probably never go far enough to satisfy people like myself in terms of doing what is needed - perhaps they should get a bit a bit more recognition from the 大象传媒 and others for setting the pace and shwoing that where necessary they are prepared for the UK to go it alone and set the standards and regulations for others to follow.

That is how the UK can succeed - by having leaders that know how to use the levers and deliver hands on management to the UK economy - instead of the muppet show that we have now from Goondog Trillionaire and his spin doctored circus.

I strongly support the Treasury viewpoint and hope they come down in favour of insurance rather than more tax.

Christ, I knew Dave loves a bandwagon but I didn't expect this - a step in the 'right' direction by the Conservatives for a change - well done!
So the Liberals and Conservatives are at least saying that they're on board - anyone missing?
Now then, let start seeing some details about consumer protection from the uncompetitive practices so rife in this industry.
In fact how about an approach that puts some onus on bankers and traders for their acts of irresponsibility in the form of retrospective penalties for actions that clearly flout the spirit of the law.Same goes for the lawyers and auditors that collaborate.
Yep - I know I'm being naiive regarding the practicalities and potential consequences but something HAS GOT TO BE DONE!
President Obama has an almighty task ahead of him but all parties in this country should be pledging their support and determination to deal
with this.

25# There are relevant threads for the "epoch changing" IR dispute in a private company.One or two people may indeed happen to think that the banks' contribution to the economic meltdown and associated impact on jobs and the tax payer IS just a tad more important.

@29
The discussion about the banks鈥� crunch and the politicians' immature ideas is getting us nowhere unless we start cleaning the mess up for good. James Galbraith put it in plain words, easy to understand and easy to follow up if it wasn鈥檛 for the banksters鈥� lobby strength:

鈥s long as the old management is in place, there are no incentives to cooperate in the evaluation you need to make.

There was clearly a systematic failure. But that does not mean there was no criminal energy around.

When a bank is insolvent, the incentives for normal banking practice disappear. They become perverse.

A change of management is essential, because firstly, the incumbents are responsible, whether they were culpable or not, and secondly, you need new people who are in line with the public purpose of this re-organization. It's the same principle in the navy: When a ship runs aground, the captain is removed, no matter if he caused the accident or not. No one would think it's a good idea to have the subsequent investigation headed by the ones who are to be investigated.

dates from 12 months back and nothing has happened since; oh, yes, among others a credit crunch is upon us, economies' crunch is happening and so is a global currency crunch; protectionism is back as well.

Wait longer and what...?

Happy Sunday!

P.S.: If you understand German, see to watch how much "criminal energy" was there around HypoRealEstate!

#24 "We did tax it (it was called capital gains tax) and it was on a tapered scale from 40 down to 10% depending on how long you kept the asset.

Brown changed it to a flat 18% a few years ago."

and its totally avoidable of you happen to live there for a while.

Remember, plenty of people to see their home as an investment, i.e. speculative asset; no doubt encouraged by the news focus on house prices and the property development tv shows.

#27 "The tax system is very kind to buy to leters:"

which took yet more property of the market for 1st time buyers, driving prices up further and further and creating notional unearned "wealth" which people kept borrowing against and spending.
Property price inflation and ever rising debt was the heart of Brown's economic "miracle", total bubble economics and always destined to crash.

Property is still a bubble (with everythin possible being done to stop it deflating further), and until it is valued at a levgel where its affordable to 1st time buyers it will remain so.

An insurance tax would be a bad idea, and it should be made clear that never again will the government step in to save banks. Banks, like everyone else, must accept the rule that if you make a bad investment you can lose all your money. Regulation should be flexible so that it can be targeted, as Lord Turner has suggested, on specific investment areas, and not used to raise income for the treasury, but to ensure the health of the real economy.

It should be pointed out to small savers that choosing the account with the highest interest rate is not necessarily a good idea. It may mean that the risk is higher. It unfair that the losses of those who chose to make deposits in high interest rate accounts, with for example the Icelandic banks, should have been compensated using taxes paid by, among others, those who sensibly avoided these accounts. This destroys the relationship between risk and profit, which is an essential part of the discipline of capitalism, and must never happen again.

When introducing any tax whether it be on a bank or a company the consumer ends up paying for it. The businesses merely increase the cost to the consumer to compensate for the increase in the overheads. A new tax on the banks although appearing to punish them for poor judgement is wrong it only reflects the insect mentality of our politicians who jump from policy to policy hoping to appease the electorate. This suggestion of a Tobin tax raising billions is just wrong. The better way forward is to manage the economy effectively, not to eventually punish the very people who have been hurt the most.

Is there really much difference between Brown and Cameron? Brown has already reduced the value of pensions thru denying funds their tax credit and now Cameron is continuing the good work.

Neither seems to recognize that many have saved up or otherwise tried to plan their retirement and now see their plans to be independent and not a burden on the state dashed.

The point about the tax being paid out of dividends is well made, and the capital value of our savings, as represented by the share price will doubtless also diminish. Will the Treasury not be repaid when it sells its investment in the banks? As always, bash the middle classes.

Oh well! There goes another vote.

Whether it's a bank tax, Tobin transaction tax, or insurance it all depends on the correct or ''accordingly'' pricing of risk.

You'd think there would be one correct way and thus one way for all.[Albeit, there could be many very near approximations to the correct way that could hold for several years before divergence.]

As most previous comments have noted, applying an additional tax on the banks which lend us money is simply going to be passed on to the consummer - us. Surprised Robert did not nail this one and the prospect of our country combining with others to make sure that this type of tax sticks is morally reprehensible. However, we are no longer as silly or as gullible as we were in 1997 as both "New" Labour and the Tories are about to find out when we all either stay at home or vote for extremist parties like the BNP or the more pragmatic newpartyforbritain.org

No matter how hard the three main parties try to 'follow the vote' with populist policies like this, to hammer the bankers, the old style of politics - bribing the voters - is almost finished and this will be no bad thing.

A 'Code of Practice' must be introduced for all bankers and global participation should be mandatory.
Untouchable insurance means something in the cupboard for any future disasters should they occur.

All point scoring electioneering.
Anything for a picture in one of Murdochs rags.

That comment could equally be turned around the other way.

Red / blue.
Blue / red.

What is the difference?

If less money, wealth in real terms, is to be diverted to the City then what are all he City types to do?
I cannot see them reinventing themselves as "Captains of Industry".
They having destroyed what is left of industry.
Mainly by exporting it.
Meanwhile the rest of us have feasted on cheap consumer goods.
Paid for in the main by rising house prices.

If there is to be international agreement on a tax on banks then it is only because it is perceived that the anglo saxon bank model has outstayed its welcolme. Too much of a drag on others economies.

And what will Britain PLC do then?
Replace expensive housing with expensive energy costs?

Who pays though?

39. At 12:14pm on 20 Mar 2010, Secret Soldier wrote:

No matter how hard the three main parties try to 'follow the vote' with populist policies like this, to hammer the bankers, the old style of politics - bribing the voters - is almost finished and this will be no bad thing.
................................................

Agree with your whole post except you did not go far enough with -bribing the voters- . That should read -bribing the voters with their own money-

Tax is avoided. And (ab)used by those in power for their populist agenda. And transferred to the customers.

The only answer is separation of commercial and gambling. I don't understand why after all this evidence all the governments try to find ways around this. Unless of course they try to avoid telling the truth that the people don't want to hear.

# 13. At 08:38am on 20 Mar 2010, Uphios wrote:

> I pressume the government of the day does realise that
> increasing the taxes payable by the banks will simply
> be passed on to the bank users, ie the taxpayers.

As long as those who frequently trade the biggest sums
pay by far the most, rest assured that we're all
absolutely fine with it.

> And you wonder why I avoid paying taxes.

Fill your boots (while you still can!) The more you
lot bragg, the higher the tax can be... after all,
you _say_ you can afford it :)

# 42. At 1:13pm on 20 Mar 2010, Uphios wrote:
> That should read -bribing the voters with their own money-

No - the idea is to use _traders_ money for it. They have
been boasting about money, so now they can show us how
much we can squeeze out of them.

Cameron has completely missed lost the plot. In one breath he's saying we'll get those banks by taxing them more, in the next he's saying, well we won't actually tax them more, not if other countries don't tax theirs more. I mean what complete piffle!

It's the legal separation of the casinos from the boring banks that we want, nothing less. I'm a taxpayer paying off THEIR debts, what is Cameron thinking, that this is OK?

If we can sling a few of them in jail then that would be a bonus, either this time or next time. Changing the law so we could do that would be the right thing. But as a comprimise I'm prepared to allow that banks must operate on the basis of UNLIMITED liability in future.

So, a bit of topic but seeing as CGT has been brought into this debate ... consider the private investor who invested cash in a very risky early stage venture 10 years ago. Suppose the venture developed into a highly profitable sustainable business which employs many staff worldwide. With full taper relief (after 3 years) the investor thought he would pay 10% tax on his gains. Then this changed to 18% (an 80% rise in tax!)

What must the investor be thinking now? What will the next government do to raise funds ... most likely raise every type of tax. So the investor will probably have to pay a lot more tax on his gains than he ever imagined - even though the investment was made over 10 years ago. I very much doubt the investor will make any further investments. On a macro scale this has to hurt UK plc.

The 18% CGT introduced last year benefits the "quick buck" investor and penalizes the longer term investors who support the creation of sustainable commercial success. Crazy. We all know that the next government has to raise cash but I strongly urge them not to dis-incentivize private investors who often really are the only source of capital for early stage high risk opportunities.

47. Dashford 'The 18% CGT introduced last year benefits the "quick buck" investor and penalizes the longer term investors who support the creation of sustainable commercial success. Crazy. We all know that the next government has to raise cash but I strongly urge them not to dis-incentivize private investors who often really are the only source of capital for early stage high risk opportunities.'

Nice analysis and illustation. But crazy? Not if the basic anarchistic idea is to make quick bucks and socialise the loses surely?

Too many 'fair-minded' people still appear to think that these 'Governments' care about 'the country' rather than care about select sub-populations within what comprises 'the country'

It's a 'Category Mistake'. Ever since 1979 (and especially since 1989), it's been a growing matter of 'how much money can we make/get away with at the expense of others'.

Asset strippers move on.... That's globalization.

You won't believe it, will you? :-(