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sneddona

Listed below are comments made by sneddona between Monday, 9th March 2009 and Thursday, 8th October 2009.

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Does Australia deserve its boozy reputation? 1:52pm on 08 Oct 2009 One aspect that is generally different in Australia to the UK for example is the distances that most people need to travel to the nearest pub. I visit Melbourne a lot and stay in the Eastern suburbs and there isn't a pub within several miles. So the only option is to get in the car and you drink less. In the UK I live in an equivalent suburb and because of the smaller distances there are several dozen pubs within easy walking distance.
Treasury wants to cut pensions tax break 11:00am on 20 Apr 2009 Robert,
Its not as simple as this. If the 40% tax relief goes then expect to see many more employers replace employee contributions to employer pension schemes with salary sacrifice arrangements - this is where the employee stops paying contributions but takes an equivalent pay cut with the employer then paying the contribution on behalf of the employee. The tax effect is just the same, but net effect to the employee and the employer is even greater as NI contributions are avoided. If all employers with pension arrangements were to do this Treasury could end up getting less overall , not more.
That bloomin' pension again 3:09pm on 03 Apr 2009 Rather than asking Sir Fred to leave (rather than sacking him) and so triggering the enhanced pension calculation, why didn't RBS ask himn to resign (i.e. leave of his own accord)? This wouldn't have triggered the enhanced calculation and if they needed him to stay on until a successor was in place then a consultancy fee could have been arranged (as HBOS did with Andy Hornby).
Will Lloyds' chiefs resign? 4:41pm on 09 Mar 2009 How will history compare Sir Fred Goodwin with Eric Daniels?

Both were chief executives of large UK banks that are now (or soon will be) majority owned by the taxpayer. Both banks have ended up in this situation through an ill advised takeover of another bank - ABN Amro in the case of RBS and HBOS in the case of Lloyds.

Some will say that the Lloyds/HBOS deal is different as Lloyds was stepping in to help the Government and avoid a further loss of confidence in the banking industry. But that misses the point that Eric Daniels and Andy Hornby had already been speaking about a possible merger and so the problems at HBOS simply provided Lloyds with the ability to do a deal that they wanted to do anyway.

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