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’HMRC bank payroll tax clarification!
Right, here it is. The headline-grabbing news (as expected) is that insurance companies, asset managers and stockbrokers will be exempt from the banker bonus tax.
That’s right, all non-banker financial types in the UK will escape with their bonuses intact this year.
Fund management flop
Oh dear. Shares in Gartmore are trading below their revised flotation price on Monday morning.
Recall, that Gartmore was forced to cut the price of its £676m IPO on Friday to 220p per share, down almost 16% from the mid-point of its target price range.
Dear HM Revenue & Customs
A draft version of a letter 11 independent UK stockbrokers are set to send to the HMRC:
Dear Sirs
Arden Partners plc, Oriel Securities Limited, The Evolution Group plc, Numis Corporation plc, Altium Capital Limited,
PBR + 2
After Thursday’s wobble, the UK gilt market has sort of regained its composure.
Click to enlarge (Snapshot taken at 10.10am London time):
And we guess this is helping:
HONG KONG (Reuters) – The top sovereign credit ratings of Britain and the United States are not under threat of a downgrade right now,
A global banker tax? (updated with breaking news from France)
Might other countries follow the UK’s lead and hit the bankers where it really hurts?
That certainly is the impression one gets reading the letter penned by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
Darling’s fiscal fiction
BNP Paribas’ Alan Clarke is not the only City economist seriously displeased with Wednesday’s pre-Budget report.
Citigroup’s Michael Saunders also has a few choice words for the chancellor, who he accuses of trying to create a fiscal fiction that the UK’s huge deficit can be resolved by taxing the ‘few and not the many’.
‘Alistair in Wonderland’ believes in Santa Claus, BNP Paribas says
BNP Paribas’ UK economist Alan Clarke has issued a scathing critique of Wednesday’s pre-budget report.
And we do mean scathing. Consider the following from Clarke’s note, emphasis ours:
The Pre-Budget Report was a political exercise and delivered little in the way of concrete details on how the government intends to narrow the budget deficit.
UK PBR – recipe for a downgrade?
Analyst reaction to the UK’s pre-Budget report, announced on Wednesday, has begun to make its way into the FT Alphaville inbox.
Here’s a small selection, starting with Monument Securities’ Marc Ostwald,
Banker tax – further details (updated with bonus maths)
From page 48 of the pre-Budget report, unveiled on Wednesday (emphasis ours):
Box 3.2: Banking Bonuses
The Government attaches great importance to tackling the remuneration practices that contributed to excessive risk taking by the banking industry.
Banker tax unveiled
From the pre-Budget report, via Reuters:
DARLING – WILL CHARGE BANKS 50 PCT TAX RATE ON STAFF BONUSES OVER £25,000
DARLING – TAX ON BANK BONUSES EXPECTED TO YIELD £550m
And from FT.com:
The Treasury estimates that the move – which comes into immediate effect and runs until April 5 next year – will affect 20,000 bankers.
PBR preview, bankers’ bonus edition
We all know the chancellor is going to announce a bankers’ bonus tax in Wednesday’s pre-Budget report. What we don’t know are the details; Things like the level at which the tax will kick in and whether it will be levied on bonus pools or individual bonuses.
(Tax) Pie in the Sky
Tucked away in Darling’s pre-budget report yesterday was something that may be impacting the share prices of UK and Irish airlines today — all of which, with the exception of the illiquid Aer Lingus, are down in early morning trading.
Darling GDP numbers
Darling’s 2008 and 2009 GDP numbers actually stack up well to existing forecasts by economists. It’s beyond 2009 that’s a problem.
Composite economist estimates for 2008 and 2009 are below in white,
Darling aka Robin Hood
As reported in the FT, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is planning to go all Robin-Hood by upping taxes on the rich to incentivise spending by the poor via tax cuts – and with that cure the ailments of the UK economy.