Goldman Sachs let off paying £10m interest on failed tax avoidance scheme

[Vague_Boy]

I guess if you're a bankster, the Inland Revenue are just that little bit more forgiving

 

Goldman Sachs let off paying £10m interest on failed tax avoidance scheme

 

Leaked documents show top tax official shook hands last year on secret settlement described by sources as a '****-up'

 

Britain's tax authorities have given Goldman Sachs an unusual and generous Christmas present, leaked documents reveal. In a secret London meeting last December with the head of Revenue, the wealthy Wall Street banking firm was forgiven £10m interest on a failed tax avoidance scheme.

 

HM Revenue and Customs sources admit privately that the interest-free deal is "a ****-up" by officials, but refuse to say who was responsible.

 

Documents leaked to Private Eye magazine and published in full by the Guardian record that Britain's top tax official, HMRC's permanent secretary Dave Hartnett, personally shook hands on a secret settlement last December.

 

Hartnett is due to be questioned on Wednesday by the Commons public accounts committee. The leaked documents suggest that a previous PAC chairman, Edward Leigh, was misled when he was told it was illegal to reveal details of such cases to parliament.

 

Leaked legal advice from James Eadie QC, which the Guardian also publishes today, says the opposite. Hartnett has discretion to reveal such facts to the parliamentary watchdog, according to the advice.

 

Leigh said: "It just underlines the absurd culture of secrecy that still pervades Whitehall."

 

Hartnett also refused to give the facts about Goldman Sachs to MP Jesse Norman on the Treasury committee last month, claiming disclosure would be illegal. He also refuses to brief ministers on the details.

 

The £10m Christmas gift for Goldman was the culmination of a prolonged attempt by the US firm to avoid paying national insurance on huge bonuses for its bankers working in London.

 

The sum was pocket change to Goldman, whose employees received $15.3bn (£9.5bn) in pay and bonuses last year. Its Wall Street head, Lloyd Blankfein, received $68m in 2008 and at the height of Britain's banking crisis 100 London partners set their bonuses at £1m each. This level was considered a mark of restraint.

 

In the 1990s, Goldman set up a company offshore in the British Virgin Islands. This entity, called Goldman Sachs Services Ltd, supposedly employed all of Goldman's London bankers, who were then "seconded" to work there.

LINK

 

I think the "****-up" was that those of us in the 99% found out about it!

[mj.scuba]

They should sack Hartnett, with no golden goodbye.

[mj.scuba]

All But Two FTSE 100 Firms 'Avoid Paying Tax'

 

I'm not outraged with the companies avoiding tax, after all they're only operating within the legal framework that exists. I'm angry that successive governments have seemingly done little to alter that legal framework in which companies must operate so they cannot legally take these tax avoidance measures.