MYNERS GOING UNDERGROUND?
By ATWadmin On March 31st, 2009Lord Myners is quite the card.
His Lordship is the government’s Minister in charge of stamping out corporate tax avoidance. Slight problem is that he himself set up a business in the tax haven of Bermuda.Whoops a daisy!
Now he is under even more fire to consider his position after former RBS chairman Tom McKillop contradicts his sworn testimony to Treasury select committee.
“In his letter to the committee, McKillop attempted to counter criticisms levelled at him and other members of the RBS board by Myners, who had argued that the bank was wrong to use its discretion to double Goodwin’s pension pot to £16.9m. McKillop takes issue with Myners on almost every one of his criticisms and insists the RBS board had no choice over the size of the pension fund. He said: “There was no question of any discretion to be exercised in relation to Sir Fred’s pension and no discretion was exercised in this regard by any RBS director. “RBS considered itself contractually bound to pay the pension benefits which had crystallised by virtue of its request to Sir Fred to leave the company – but not to pay any more than the proper contractual obligation.” He insisted: “At no stage did Lord Myners or any other representative of the government ask the RBS directors to attempt to alter any of the contractual terms relating to Sir Fred’s pensions. Nor did Lord Myners attempt to discuss the matter with Sir Fred, as he did with the payment in lieu of notice.”
Myners is such an embarrassment but then again Prudence Brown sure knows how to pick them!!!
"Slight problem is that he himself set up a business in the tax haven of Bermuda."
Any news yet on what exactly that problem was?
Jim, you don’t give a fox the job of guarding the chickens. – maybe you might do that just that, but normal folk wouldn’t.
Still not following. Apparently it is morally reprehensible to run a business in Bermuda. No doubt someone will explain why. If not to me then at least to the people of Bermuda.
Lord Myners, the minister in charge of the Government’s clampdown on tax havens, has used a blind trust to invest £250,000 in an offshore shelter.
Either you don’t read the news, or you don’t understand ‘hypocrisy’. He was doing the very thing that he was appointed to stop, i.e. attempting to avoid tax liability.
Nothng to do with ‘the people of Bermuda’, but more to do with his personal integrity, and honesty. If he wanted to use a tax haven, – and who doesn’t? – he should have refused the job of commissar…
There’s nothing illegal or dishonest about either trusts or Bermuda. There’s no tax evasion suggested and he remains liable to pay tax on anything he receives from the trust. As for your suggestion that the Minister in charge of dealing with the offshore sector should not be someone with experience of dealing with it, I’m afraid I simply don’t follow the logic. Who better?