Bonus time as banks pay out £40bn, did the Chancellor Alistair Darling's windfall tax achieve anything?"The world's biggest investment banks are expected to pay out more than $65bn (£40bn) in salaries and bonuses in the next two weeks, reinforcing the view that it is business as usual on Wall Street and in the City barely a year since the taxpayer bailout of the banking... |
The windfall tax will put £2 billion into the Exchequer, and it allows the public to believe that something has been done to change the culture in the banks.
Nothing has actually changed in the way the banks pay their employees, but it does show just how much profit they are making from us all.
I don't think there was actually anything Darling could do to change the banking industry's global practices, and the danger was in making a windfall tax so punitive that employees would move overseas (and therefore pay no UK tax whatsoever).
There was precious little he could do; yet he had to be seen to do something. Screwing £2 billion out of the banks wasn't a disastrous outcome. Perhaps he could have got more, but he was never going to change global practices.
Like Mr Sceptic has stated it has added £2billion to the state coffers.
Additionally as a lot of that £40 billion will be paid by US banks to US workers there is little Darling or any UK chancellor could have done.
The windfall tax was introduced as a punishment for banks and bankers - one that I dont necessary agree with but one that was supposed to appease the public, who still dont think it is good enough and for some strange reason think that bankers should be beheaded at the Bank of England and have their head put on spikes to be displayed for their amusement.
Think about this carefully and you will see the crafty way it was handled. We bailed the banks out. They pay these bonuses out of what we give them to stay afloat and not go bust. Darling puts a windfall tax on those bonuses. Whose money is he actually getting? The taxpayers money. It was just a way to fleece the taxpayer even more because the banks will just increase the bonus so the fat cat banker still gets what he wanted and it makes their Head cronies Darling and Brown look good to the people. Taxpayer has been duped again. Typical of this govt.
ahh who cares, bring on a goverment backed bank for the essentials and let the rest of em die
All you get out of our enire parliament is lies and deception. Its like a huge boys club legally kicking the **** out of the ordinary hard working people.
aint that something
