Last November, I blogged about tax avoidance… and that there were some high-powered people who argued that the UK didn’t have a spending crisis, but that it had a tax avoidance crisis.
So I was absolutely furious to read an article in this morning’s Guardian which indicated that Barclays Bank had been forced to admit that it paid just £113million in UK corporation tax in 2009 – a year when it made record profits of £11.6bn (that’s 11,600million).
In other words, its tax bill represented just 0.974% of its profits!
Stunning. Sickening. Derisory. Just plain wrong.
So, at a time when most of us are being devastated by the billion-pound cuts to essential services that we all depend on, Barclays is paying out bonuses of £2bn and its CEO, Bob Diamond, is in line for a bonus of more than £8million. It’s important to understand that Barclays is not the only company accused of tax-avoidance in the UK - others include Boots and Vodafone.
Once again, clearly, we’re NOT 'all in this together'!
I’ve just signed up on the Robin Hood Tax website. Please do the same!
So I was absolutely furious to read an article in this morning’s Guardian which indicated that Barclays Bank had been forced to admit that it paid just £113million in UK corporation tax in 2009 – a year when it made record profits of £11.6bn (that’s 11,600million).
In other words, its tax bill represented just 0.974% of its profits!
Stunning. Sickening. Derisory. Just plain wrong.
So, at a time when most of us are being devastated by the billion-pound cuts to essential services that we all depend on, Barclays is paying out bonuses of £2bn and its CEO, Bob Diamond, is in line for a bonus of more than £8million. It’s important to understand that Barclays is not the only company accused of tax-avoidance in the UK - others include Boots and Vodafone.
Once again, clearly, we’re NOT 'all in this together'!
I’ve just signed up on the Robin Hood Tax website. Please do the same!
Come to the protest in London on the 26th!
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for a Tory to explain to me how this is fair, and no one has volunteered so far...