Spain Get Your Money Out Whilst You Still Can?

gadgetmind

IME (which may be atypical) the very top bean counters (CFO and maybe one rung down) earn decent money but they layer below tend to have generic skills and are easy to replace so their pay reflects this.

bigadaj

Looking at large listed companies there does seem to be an interchangeability of management, and my impression is that many of these people have an accountancy background. I have never understood how someone can move from running a metal basher, to an airline, to a tech firm and onto a bank but it seems to often be the case.

Adam crozier seems an example of the principle but I don't think he is an accountant.

gadgetmind

bigadaj wrote: »

I have never understood how someone can move from running a metal basher, to an airline, to a tech firm and onto a bank

I also cannot comprehend how someone who doesn't understand a business can run a business.

I know I have to summarise and simplify material I present to our CEO, but that's because he's got huge amounts of stuff to oversee not because he couldn't understand my material if he focussed on it. I also know that sometimes he *will* focus on it, so I need copious amounts of backup material to let him dig deeper and to show that I've done all the foundation work.

This makes me feel warm and fuzzy because it means every other part of the business has to be as nailed down as my parts, if not more so.

TickersPlaysPop

ColdIron wrote: »

Well, Corporation tax accounted for 2.8% of GDP in 2011 of which avoidance is a tiny proportion

Thanks for the useful piece of info, so assuming the avoidance is 10% of the total corp tax then Annual growth would increase by 0.28%? That was seen as a massive piece of good news as we came out of recession. So maybe it is significant? Also Who knows what the real avoidance figure is? It could be a lot larger than you expect.

Ok, so what is the public sector sum as a % of GDP? And what % of that spend are we saying is excessive and wasteful? By public sector sum I mean the money used not to pay the interest on the debt mountain, but purely the public sector wages and cost to run.

We can only compare unpaid Corp tax to the excessive and wasteful portion of public sector spending?

Companies that have been hoarding money since the start if the global crisis should be strongly encouraged by gov legislation to truely and properly invest in the country where the profits are taken or pay taxes to that country.

Peace to all

Glen_Clark

bigadaj wrote: »

I have never understood how someone can move from running a metal basher, to an airline, to a tech firm and onto a bank but it seems to often be the case..

A Shrewd Entrepreneur like Richard Branson doesn't restrict himself to one business. He will turn his hand to anything that shows a better profit, like the Dragons on Dragons Den. Nobody can have all the specialist skills required to run all those businesses but specialist skills can be bought.

bigadaj

Glen_Clark wrote: »

A Shrewd Entrepreneur like Richard Branson doesn't restrict himself to one business. He will turn his hand to anything that shows a better profit, like the Dragons on Dragons Den. Nobody can have all the specialist skills required to run all those businesses but specialist skills can be bought.

Yes, but he's become his own brand which only a few people will or can ever become. Dragons den is a poor example to quote its a half step up from the apprentice, and has nothing to do with business it's only entertainment.

Also Branson's branding also adds costs that the shrewd buyer wouldn't be happy to pay, the pension and isa tracker products being good examples.

My point was that this hopping between businesses is being done by very average people with little added value apart from to those individuals, not the businesses themselves.

TickersPlaysPop

ColdIron wrote: »

Well, Corporation tax accounted for 2.8% of GDP in 2011 of which avoidance is a tiny proportion

Corporate tax Avoidance is estimated by leading economist and chartered accountant Richard Murphy to be ~1.5% of GDP, and he makes it clear this is an underestimation.....

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/10/11/hmrcs-new-tax-gap-report-a-work-of-fiction-and-guess-work/#comment-area

Is this guy to be listened to?

Kind regards

ColdIron

Is this guy to be listened to?

I've never heard of him but a quick look at his Wiki shows him to be far from beyond reproach and working to an agenda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Murphy_%28accountant%29

He has disputed HM Revenue and Customs' estimates of the tax gap. His estimate has been dismissed by HMRC.There have been several other criticisms of his methodology including Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation in their December 2012 publication The Tax Gap for Corporation Tax.

In February 2013, the Institute for Fiscal Studies cited his estimate of the corporate tax gap for the TUC as one which was "likely overstated (possibly by a wide margin)"

I'm not sure how much store I'd put by one dodgy accountant with an axe to grind

Glen_Clark

bigadaj wrote: »

Yes, but he's become his own brand which only a few people will or can ever become. Dragons den is a poor example to quote its a half step up from the apprentice, and has nothing to do with business it's only entertainment.

Also Branson's branding also adds costs that the shrewd buyer wouldn't be happy to pay, the pension and isa tracker products being good examples.

My point was that this hopping between businesses is being done by very average people with little added value apart from to those individuals, not the businesses themselves.

You have mis read my post. I didn't say like Dragons Den. I said like the Dragons on Dragons Den. Take Bannatyne for example. Started as an ex prisoner (like Branson) with nothing (unlike Branson who had his Barrister father to pay his fines and get him out of prison), Bannatyne had to do his time. Moved from Ice Cream Salesman, Care Home Operator, then Health Clubs, Hotels, and moves to almost anything that shows a better profit. Whatever you think of the TV programme you have to admit the Dragons are pretty much self made.

TickersPlaysPop

ColdIron wrote: »

I've never heard of him but a quick look at his Wiki shows him to be far from beyond reproach and working to an agenda

I'm not sure how much store I'd put by one dodgy accountant with an axe to grind

Let's not confuse tax avoidance with tax gap, and also not jump to conclusions solely based on wiki and disagreements between him and HMRC.

We can calculate the likely sum of international tax avoidance for ourselves? Is it really so complicated that we can't do our own calcs?

As the HMRC have omitted the international tax avoidance schemes where profits are set up to be outside the UK, it is simple. To me it's a simple case of listing the top 10 international companies who are known to set their profits outside UK, and then perform one calculation. This will give us a feel for the amounts of money we are talking about. The guy in question did exactly that, and came up with some shocking figures.

This is hugely political topic where if the UK clamps down on this, there is a fear businesses will consider moving out of the UK. The main losers in this will be the politicians and the elite that they serve, also the big financial institutions will not like it, inc those that manage our pension money. So this is massively political.... and one where there has to be a integrated global multi national agreement to avoid countries putting themselves at a disadvantage on the global market for these huge companies. There have already been conferences this year on this topic supported by the current UK government.

So..... we all need to keep this on the agenda to make sure a solution is reached, so that large companies don't suck money out of the global economy and help keep it and us all suppressed.

Cheers