UBS pays no Taxes atleast until 2014

[DC]

UBS will not pay taxes atleast until 2014, despite hughe profits and imoral bonuses beeing payd, after the swiss people had to pay to save them from brankrupty.

is this fair? what are your thoughts?

[Frank327]

Well, why don't they have to pay taxes? What's the reasoning behind it? If they're making profit they should be paying taxes.

[Undesired Walrus]

I'm a little wary of these 'Robin Hood' taxes that isolate the bankers as their source of attack. It seems like a short term populist measure born out of anger rather than a long term problem of stopping such enormous bonuses.

One idea would be for the Government to force banks to write tougher contracts for their new high-flying employees. The reason they pay out these massive bonuses is in order to keep 'talent' in their organisation and to therefore prevent them from leaving for a larger salary. If they had a clause in their contract that stressed that they should remain for at least 12 months it may reduce the bonus culture somewhat.

Or we could nationalise these vital public services (I.e, the banks). That would be one way of keeping their salaries in check.

[TriskettheKid]

I'm a little wary of these 'Robin Hood' taxes that isolate the bankers as their source of attack. It seems like a short term populist measure born out of anger rather than a long term problem of stopping such enormous bonuses.

One idea would be for the Government to force banks to write tougher contracts for their new high-flying employees. The reason they pay out these massive bonuses is in order to keep 'talent' in their organisation and to therefore prevent them from leaving for a larger salary. If they had a clause in their contract that stressed that they should remain for at least 12 months it may reduce the bonus culture somewhat.

Or we could nationalise these vital public services (I.e, the banks). That would be one way of keeping their salaries in check.

Speaking as someone who works in compensation, that is a bad idea.

The bonus, and indeed the total direct compensation, could be well within proper alignment. The issue, though, is not the SIZE of the bonus, but the EASE of which it is obtained. Tie the bonus to more meaningful metrics, make the targets harder to achieve, as well as the threshold for payment. Make the leverage something around 200% of target (which is normal). And then give the Compensation Committee discretionary power to adjust.

This is, of course, ignoring the impact of equity.

[DC]

the reason behind the tax break was that we as a nation could not afford to let them go bankrupt.
this is the reason now the government wants to split them up, or atleast get out the part of UBS and CS that are needed for the people, (credits for small and middle bussiness and the "payment system") so the people dont have to worry when a speculative part of the bank goes bankrupt.

the Bonuses wouldnt be our bussines if they didnt need our taxmoney. but the shareholders voted to give em those bonuses.

and without bonus payment they would have made profit last year, but now that bonuses are payd, no profit, now its a loss. so it almost doesnt matter how usefull they are for the bank, they get trown money at them and its not just a bit. the same was the case in 2007 i think. alot profit but even more bonuses than profit, so in the end, no profit. crazy.

[funk de fino]

Banks suck