Listening to the Today Programme the other morning, it seems a consensus has been reached: the problem in the banking industry is big bonuses, and if the politicians can command the banks to stop paying big bonuses, then the “bonus problem” will be solved. Why are big bonuses are paid in the first place? Unpleasant as

Bankers on Wall Street and in the City of London voice alarm at moves by US lawmakers to slap punitive taxes on bonuses paid to high earners at bailed-out institutions

Lordy: A new “super-tax” on bank bonuses will be introduced immediately, the chancellor announced today, in an attempt to stop banks using profits to pay large bonuses to bankers. Alistair Darling attempted to appease critics who feared the tax on bonuses would prompt defections from the City by insisting the 50% tax rate on bonuses of more

A Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman has called for a new tax on bonuses  to be placed on banks. Lord Oakeshott’s call came after the Royal Bank of Scotland’s chairman claimed that regulation was the only way to restrain the annual bonus bonanza in the financial services industry.  Sir Philip Hampton admitted that the bank was “paying

Growing numbers of people and businesses are avoiding or delaying paying taxes as the "credit crunch" bites, the National Audit Office says in a new report. The increase comes against the background of a doubling of consumer debt leading to people avoiding paying their tax bills, says the report. The auditors estimate that up to 1.5 million working adults had a personal or business tax debt in Apr...

Growing numbers of people and businesses are avoiding or delaying paying taxes as the credit crunch bites, the National Audit Office has revealed. The increase comes against the background of the doubling of consumer debt which has led to people avoiding paying their tax bills, says its report, published today. The auditors estimate that up to 1.5m working adults had a personal or business tax deb...

How much Tax Credit fraud takes place? As of yesterday, we know the answer to this question: in 2009/10 no more than 1.9% of tax credit entitlement was accounted for by fraud and 1.4% was a more likely figure. What is more, this figure was down from 2.3% in 2008/9. Once again the government is nowhere to be seen in appreciating how low this figure is.

To be honest, I don't know the details of the dispute between Birmingham council and the unions over equal pay for women. It's something to do with bonuses being paid to "men" which were denied to "women". It doesn't sound quite right to me, because, as far as I can make out the bonuses were paid to people doing different jobs - for example, refuse collectors got a big bonus while c...

Meanwhile, in Labour’s decade, billionaires’ wealth quadrupled and three out of five of them paid no income tax. Well, leave aside the fact that income tax is paid upon income and not increases in wealth, I still don’t believe that figure. Whatever you say about the ways in which you can dodge taxes, it really isn’t that

He doesn’t fail us yet again. So, man calls for tax on banks. Or bonuses. Or, well, just make the bastards pay more money, right? Tax levied. Man complains that tax is not actually being paid by banks or bankers. Nope, it’s our pension plans which are paying this tax. Remember, this is the man who tells us that