100% income tax?

Zelie

Generali wrote: »

Ok, that answers point 1. Contracts should be ripped up if it's politically convenient.

A subsidiary question is would you do business with the UK 'gummint'[sic] if you felt that your contract would be torn up? I would but only with a pretty substantial risk premium.

What about point 2? Should foreign banks have their contracts torn up by the 'gummint'[sic].

I'm unclear why you are responding in such a b1tchy tone? I asked a question. If you don't know the answer then fine, leave it to others to answer and can the snark. If you do have an idea of the answer then I'm sure you are more than capable of providing it in a polite manner. In fact I know you are having read many of your other posts. So kindly wind it in and either post a sensible reply or cease b1tching at me.

Generali

Zelie wrote: »

I'm unclear why you are responding in such a b1tchy tone? I asked a question. If you don't know the answer then fine, leave it to others to answer and can the snark. If you do have an idea of the answer then I'm sure you are more than capable of providing it in a polite manner. In fact I know you are having read many of your other posts. So kindly wind it in and either post a sensible reply or cease b1tching at me.

Ok, sorry for posting in a manner you feel to be sarcastic, that wasn't what I meant.

There are banks that have been nationalised, banks that are UK domiciled but not nationalised, banks that are not UK domiciled and have not been nationalised but which have UK domiciled branches.

How would you have them treated them variously? How, for example, would you treat banks which are perfectly solvent and have remained so for the past couple of years (Standard Chartered springs to mind as an example and as an ex-employer). Why should the UK Government have anything to do with their pay? How would you treat an employee of the London branch of the Standard Bank of South Africa?

Lots of people post on here saying (in effect), "SCREW THE BANKERS!!!!!!" without really having too much of a clue what they're on about. I assumed you were one of those. I apologise if I'm wrong.

Zelie

Generali wrote: »

Ok, sorry for posting in a manner you feel to be sarcastic, that wasn't what I meant.

There are banks that have been nationalised, banks that are UK domiciled but not nationalised, banks that are not UK domiciled and have not been nationalised but which have UK domiciled branches.

How would you have them treated them variously? How, for example, would you treat banks which are perfectly solvent and have remained so for the past couple of years (Standard Chartered springs to mind as an example and as an ex-employer). Why should the UK Government have anything to do with their pay? How would you treat an employee of the London branch of the Standard Bank of South Africa?

Lots of people post on here saying (in effect), "SCREW THE BANKERS!!!!!!" without really having too much of a clue what they're on about. I assumed you were one of those. I apologise if I'm wrong.

Apology accepted.

I'm not really asking about the various banks and no, I'm not a 'screw the bankers' type. There is a gap in my knowledge of what happened with one particular bank (RBS) as I've been on holiday. One week it seemed that Darling was going to take action to ensure they had no mega-bonuses and the directors were all threatening to resign. The next they are getting bonuses, no resignations and Darling is considering a windfall tax to appease the masses. So what happened in between? And what reasons would there be to not just call the directors bluff and tell them to go ahead and resign if they felt that strongly about it?

Generali

Zelie wrote: »

Apology accepted.

Thanks. :-)

Zelie wrote: »

I'm not really asking about the various banks and no, I'm not a 'screw the bankers' type. There is a gap in my knowledge of what happened with one particular bank (RBS) as I've been on holiday. One week it seemed that Darling was going to take action to ensure they had no mega-bonuses and the directors were all threatening to resign. The next they are getting bonuses, no resignations and Darling is considering a windfall tax to appease the masses. So what happened in between? And what reasons would there be to not just call the directors bluff and tell them to go ahead and resign if they felt that strongly about it?

I think it's what the Labour Party used to call a U-Turn when the Tories were in. The Government wanted to revise written contracts. The board called them on that and the Government would then have taken advice from the Attorney General's office and that advice would have told the Government that they can't just tear up a contract as it's contrary to the rights of the signatories to the contract.

The Government can't tear up contracts just because they become inconvenient. Who would do business with the Government if they did?

ChiefGrasscutter

Generali wrote: »

Thanks. :-)

I think it's what the Labour Party used to call a U-Turn when the Tories were in. The Government wanted to revise written contracts. The board called them on that and the Government would then have taken advice from the Attorney General's office and that advice would have told the Government that they can't just tear up a contract as it's contrary to the rights of the signatories to the contract.

The Government can't tear up contracts just because they become inconvenient. Who would do business with the Government if they did?

When I worked in engineering...........
Our employment contracts were written such that the company could, if necessary, do what they like in terms of making changes to an employment contract provided they gave the appropiate notice: itself laid down in the contract. There were also clauses that effectively mean't that contracts could be changed immediately if some law/directive was introduced that made the existing wording/provisios in the contract illegal under UK/EU law.

Indeed I can remember such events happening when to save money the company gave the relevant notice that such and such provision within everyone's contract would cease to exist effective from some date.
If you did not like/accept this then you would in effect have handed in your notice.

If you look at your current account bank's T&C's there is some catch all clause at the end such that regardless of what else is in the T&C's if HMG requires the bank to overrule them by government directive/order/law then overuled they are: end of story.

This concept that these employment contracts are written in stone and can never ever be changed is absurd: and don't start me on the concept of guaranteed bonuses written into contracts.
Likewise the concept that a government cannot change the law if it impinges on someones contract is equally silly.

chewmylegoff

if this is a one-off, surely they'll just defer bonuses for a year.

in any case this isn't a new 50% tax, as it just means that the bank's bonus pool will partially be used to pay tax, instead of paid out to employees, who would have been taxed either 40% or 50% on it anyway.

hence, the bank has a bonus pool of £100. this year it will only pay out £67 (ignoring eers NI for ease).

the £33 held back to pay the bank's bonus tax would have been taxed at least 41% (income tax + 1% NI) if paid out as a bonus, so the treasury's net gain is only actually £19 = 19%.

further, the employee doesn't have as much bonus to buy VATable luxury items with.

the net gain in tax take is going to be pretty low. suppose it might be a vote winner from people who don't understand that labour actually isn't "making bankers pay for the mess they created and we fixed", which is the message they are trying to send out.

chewmylegoff

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

When I worked in engineering...........
Our employment contracts were written such that the company could, if necessary, do what they like in terms of making changes to an employment contract provided they gave the appropiate notice: itself laid down in the contract. There were also clauses that effectively mean't that contracts could be changed immediately if some law/directive was introduced that made the existing wording/provisios in the contract illegal under UK/EU law.

Indeed I can remember such events happening when to save money the company gave the relevant notice that such and such provision within everyone's contract would cease to exist effective from some date.
If you did not like/accept this then you would in effect have handed in your notice.

If you look at your current account bank's T&C's there is some catch all clause at the end such that regardless of what else is in the T&C's if HMG requires the bank to overrule them by government directive/order/law then overuled they are: end of story.

This concept that these employment contracts are written in stone and can never ever be changed is absurd: and don't start me on the concept of guaranteed bonuses written into contracts.
Likewise the concept that a government cannot change the law if it impinges on someones contract is equally silly.

the government of the day changing the law specifically to rip up a small number of contracts to rectify a situation which only arose as a result of its own ridiculous short sightedness is not quite analogous with an employer inserting a standard clause into a contract saying that they reserve the right to alter a contract if new legislation passed or adopted by the government of the day makes the currently lawful contract illegal in some way.

naughtybish

The_White_Horse wrote: »

i think the Govt should look after those who pay most tax at the expense of benefit scroungers.

what about, instead of a bonus, each banker gets a slave family - where they have all been on benefits for longer than 5 years.

As i say, i have nothing against bonuses at all - provided the company paying them is doing so from their own profits.

that could be the next reality tv show

just need to think up a good title for the show :rolleyes:


Bishmena

Harry_Powell

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I personally believe the bonuses should not be paid until the banks are actually running on their own and they have paid the taxpayer back. However, on the other hand, I believe we should have sorted the problems at the begining, not now.

Which means that the talent will leave Lloyds/HBOS and RBS and go to Barclays and other banks who have not received taxpayer handouts, which further means that when we (the tax payer) try to sell our shares in the banks we'll get less for them because they're even more knackered than when we bailed them out.

Graham_Devon

Harry_Powell wrote: »

Which means that the talent will leave Lloyds/HBOS and RBS and go to Barclays and other banks who have not received taxpayer handouts, which further means that when we (the tax payer) try to sell our shares in the banks we'll get less for them because they're even more knackered than when we bailed them out.

We'll see....