Directors' pay rose 50% in past year, says IDS report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15487866

 

Pay for the directors of the UK's top businesses rose 50% over the past year, a pay research company has said.

 

Incomes Data Services (IDS) said this took the average pay for a director of a FTSE 100 company to just short of £2.7m.

 

The rise, covering salary, benefits and bonuses, was higher than that recorded for the main person running the company, the chief executive.

 

Their pay rose by 43% over the year, according to the study.

 

Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Australia, said the report was "concerning" and called for big companies to be more transparent when they decide executive pay.

 

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the pay increases were part of a "something for nothing" culture, since the stock market had not risen to match them.

 

A statement from IDS said that that figure suggested that "executive largesse is evenly spread across the board".

 

Base salaries rose by just 3.2%, although that was above the median rise recorded by IDS this week for average pay settlements of 2.6% for private sector workers.

 

The latest consumer price inflation figures showed inflation at 5.2%.

 

Directors' bonus payments, on average, rose by 23% from £737,000 in 2010 to £906,000 this year.

 

The Unite union has called executive pay "obscene" and has called for shareholders to be given more power to hold directors accountable.

 

The union's general secretary, Len McCluskey said: "The Government should strongly consider giving shareholders greater legal powers to question and curb these excessive remuneration packages.

 

"Institutional shareholders need to exercise much greater scrutiny and control of directors' pay and bonuses.

 

"It's obscene and it shows that the City has learnt nothing during the financial troubles of the last four years."

Highest paid chief executives 2010/11

 

'Complex' packages

 

"I think it is very hard to justify these sorts of pay increases," Deborah Hargreaves, chair of the High Pay Commission, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

 

"When you think the average pay is going up 1% or 2%, it's not even meeting price rises. These pay packages have become so complex that executives don't even understand it themselves.

 

"We have got a closed shop here and someone needs to break it open."

 

Brendan Barber, the TUC's general secretary, said: "Top directors have used tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people's living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay.

 

"Reform should start with employee representation on remuneration committees, which would give directors a much-needed sense of reality."

 

Steve Tatton, who edited the IDS report, said: "Britain's economy may be struggling to return to pre-recession levels of output, but the same cannot be said of FTSE 100 directors' remuneration."

 

Mr Tatton said that while closer scrutiny of pay awards was expected in future, "remuneration committees will have to make sure that they are able to provide full and thorough justifications for the bonuses awarded."

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But, remember, David Ca-MORON said "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER".... Sorry for continually repeating this, but really, can there be a more utterly hollow and downright intelligence-insulting sound-bite than this.... It's even worse than "EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION", or "NO MORE BOOM AND BUST".... :rolleyes:

 

But, I digress.... in a time when the middle is being squeezed, when people are experiencing pay freezes, below inflation rate pay "rises", and are expected to pay more into their pension and get less out, this is really just insult to injury.... Seriously, what f/ucking planet are these people on...?

 

Oh, but they claim that they "take risks"... Really...? Rubbish... If their strategies fail, they blame the "business environment", if they're a bank, they'll get a bail-out courtesy of muggins the tax-payer, and, quite the opposite to being charged with fraud or corporate malfeasance, they'll happily waltz off with their gold-plated pensions seemingly totally immune from the consequences of the law; and if they're, say the Director General of the BBC or another public body, then they'll say "well, I need to be paid this amount to keep up with what the private sector is paying out"... It's all a SCAM... It's a lie... These people DO NOT JUSTIFY THEIR MASSIVELY INFLATED WAGE PACKETS.... For the 1% it's all upside and no downside... It's Socialism/Corporatism for the rich and Capitalism/the dog-eat-dog of the Market for the rest of us.... This is exactly the reason why the "Occupy..." protests are going on....

 

Hopefully Ca-MORON's words will haunt him to this grave... You know, like Neville Chamberlain's "piece of paper" from Hitler, or Margaret Twatcher's "there's no such thing as society"...

 

NEVER FORGIVE

NEVER FORGET

NEVER TRUST A TORY....

 

<_<

...And, we even let the f/uckers get away with paying their taxes.....

UK Uncut targets Goldman Sachs's £10m tax

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oc...P=FBCNETTXT9038

 

Campaign group launches legal action after leaked documents reveal investment bankers' secret deal with HMRC

 

The first steps have been taken in an innovative legal action by campaigners to try to recoup £10m in tax from Goldman Sachs. It follows the leaking of internal tax documents to the Guardian revealing that the US investment bankers avoided interest payments thanks to a secret deal with the head of HM Revenue & Customs.

 

The campaigning group UK Uncut, which a year ago occupied Vodafone offices in protest at a similar alleged "sweetheart" tax deal by the mobile phone company, want the Goldman deal quashed. HMRC's top official, Dave Hartnett, has admitted to a parliamentary committee that the tax concession was a "mistake".

 

The London law firm Leigh Day & Co has taken the formal first steps to mount a legal challenge to HMRC over the Goldman Sachs deal. UK Uncut supporters claim it was contrary to HMRC's own policies and therefore unlawful.

 

The secret settlement that was reached between HMRC and Goldman Sachs in December 2010 saved up to £10m in interest on unpaid national insurance charges. Goldman Sachs had been trying to operate an ultimately unsuccessful avoidance scheme by paying huge bankers' bonuses offshore into so-called employee benefit trusts.

 

The legal action will put further pressure on Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax, following the leaking of documents to the Guardian and Private Eye detailing how Hartnett "shook hands" on the deal.

 

Before the internal memos were leaked, Hartnett had exasperated MPs on the Treasury and public accounts committees by refusing to release information on secret deals made with giant transnational corporations.

 

After the leaking led to him being cross-questioned by MPs, Hartnett said he had arranged for the global head of tax for Goldman Sachs to fly in from New York for a London meeting he presided over, to repair what he said was a bad relationship between Goldman Sachs and the UK tax authorities.

 

Under judicial review proceedings, UK Uncut's lawyers will eventually be able to demand disclosure of all internal documents regarding the process by which the agreement was reached to waive the interest Goldman Sachs owed.

 

Jesse Norman, a Tory member of the Treasury committee, said Hartnett should resign after telling parliament that he did not deal with Goldman Sachs's tax affairs, which turned out to be untrue. Hartnett said that when he said he did not deal with Goldman Sachs he meant that he did not deal with its tax affairs every day.

 

Murray Worthy from UK Uncut Legal Action said: "The government's top taxman appears to have secretly agreed to let a global investment bank off millions in tax, while ordinary people are paying for the massive £850bn bank bailout with their jobs, welfare payments, pensions and public services." He said most people would see this as "incredibly unfair".

 

Richard Stein from Leigh Day & Co said: "If this was an error by a junior official then that is fine and it can be rectified through quashing this settlement. It must not be swept under the carpet or buried within oak-panelled rooms. It is money which should be contributing to all aspects of the country."

 

I love the HMRC bloke's claim that "when he said he did not deal with Goldman Sachs he meant that he did not deal with its tax affairs every day." So something is only part of your general responsibility at work if you deal with it every day? The Chancellor doesn't deal with the Budget speech because he doesn't do it every day? A firefighter doesn't deal with saving lives if (s)he doesn't do it every day?

 

I thought that I had gone beyond the point when I would be shocked by executive pay rises but 50% really is extracting the urine.