City Bosses Paying Less Tax Than Cleaners

WELCOME to Blair and Brown’s Britain, where millionaire City chiefs pay tax at a lower rate than the people who clean their plush offices.

A loophole in the law allows fat-cat chiefs of private equity firms to pay as little as 10 per cent tax on their earnings.

However, in a severe criticism of his fellow bosses, SVG Capital’s Nicholas Ferguson, has brought the issue out into the open.

Says he: “Any commonsense person would say that a highly-paid private equity executive paying less tax than a cleaning lady or other low-paid workers can’t be right. I have not heard anyone give a clear explanation of why it is justified.”

Following Ferguson’s attack, the Treasury has now been forced to finally get off its behind and look at ways of closing the unfair loophole. Although whether they actually do change anything remains to be seen.

The Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, opines: “It is scandalous that there are many people on low or middle incomes who are paying more and more tax and yet you have very rich people paying only 10 per cent. It is Gordon Brown who has created this, despite supposedly being the father of social justice.”

Private equity firms make their money by borrowing millions to buy underperforming companies, before cutting costs (i.e. sacking half the staff), stripping assets and then selling them for massive profits.

And getting the cleaners in to spruce the place up…

Anorak

Posted: 5th, June 2007 | In: Money Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink