Yet another basic injustice. You have to allow people to claim reasonable expenses etc, but the rich can afford to pay accountants to use every loophole to the max.

the former is called "theft from employer" which is treated as one level below manslaughter, the latter is as you say "accounting error"

many years ago I might have been that young man, and I still cannot understand it either. Why should the MD pay less total tax than the office cleaner ?? who needs it most ?
a couple of years ago my ceo (ftse 250) was paid a larger increase into his annual pension plan payments than my annual salary. but then I am not included in the remit of the salaries board.

I remember nearly bursting a blood vessel when I realised how much the then head man of BA and BR (combined) was paid. At the time I was running a business that supported three families.

He was paid SO MUCH for each part time job, that had you taxed him at the rate of 1,000 pounds PER DAY, PER JOB, then he would have taken home nett from each job much more than my business earned GROSS.

how much business acumen did he really have ? just because they are at the top of a megalith doesn't mean they have the bits in the right place when the business hits a bump. probably why, except for one or two heavyweights such as Sir Terry Leahy, they move on to "bigger and better" after 3-5yrs. thats too soon to have made a massive impact but long enough to have proved to non-exec on the salaries committee that they are a nice guy, has the right peeps round for drinks, deserves a £100k bonus just for joining them. Buncefield showed a number of large co's that were not able to cope.

bil, your business will have employed people who contributed rather than came in every day. you and your managers will have been able to bend with the winds of doing business. sorry, but very few are capable of doing that.
one I think has proved over and over again but seems to get little credit for it is Sir Rocco Forte. He lost his father's co by Gerry Robinson's skulduggery and even lost the right to his own name. He is still there, wheeling, dealing and paying his way. better than Rupert Murdoch's son's.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. We were too small to have managers, there was just me and the guys.

A lot of so called managers in big business just have expertise in surviving and moving problems onto someone else, not real management.

Thanks for the kind words.

Indeed. IMO a great deal of the resentment towards bankers' bonuses and huge pay-offs for company directors are because they are being rewarded for FAILURE, not for exceptional performance. The ordinary working guy would be sacked for that.

Remember Railtrack? Used the money given them BY THE STATE ( for important repairs for work that had been flagged as potentially dangerous) and instead used it to fund shareholder divis. The damaged rails broke, people died, and the head of Railtrack exited stage right with a golden parachute, and welcomed onto Woolworths' board (was that right? I think it was them) with a golden handshake.

I just think of Railtrack as murdering bastards who put profit above safety.

ah but just look at what it did for Woolworths


another golden parachute


why don't they ever get a lead anchor

Or a lead overcoat and swimming lessons. If you or I screwed up that badly, we'd be out on our ear, and how!

Indeed the latest chaos and the phone hacking scandal are serious indications of fragmentation of the British society.

Add to that the current welfare cuts and you have a squished middle class and no a lot of prospects for the youth.

I have read an article in Newsweek about the riots and the writer, the ex mayor,
Ken Livingstone indicated as a main reason the closure of the youth clubs.

All the business news sites in the UK today have been full of a "surprise" increase in unemployment.
Unfortunately I don't see where the new jobs are going to come from.

Oh yeah, but the government will still big up getting the workshy back to work.

Why? Leave the buggers to rot, I say

Sir Hugh orde one of the applicants for the MET job was investigated for flying his family business class on expenses (and other things). Was all wrong though, the Daily Mail apologised

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/arti...Hugh-Orde.html

I think I'd define the mail as a rag.

According to Private Eye

"Sir Hugh has been busy working the media since he emerged as fron runner to take over as MET commisioner. Funny that he wasn't so eager to court the media when Private Eye was probing his curious use of expenses to cover FREE BUSINESS-CLASS TRAVEL for his family for almost 6 YEARS."

A worthy applicant for the top job