Do not play any tax games with compensation

News that another major bank has been entangled in a tax dispute with the British tax authorities as it has been caught with a tax avoidance scheme where (favoured) staff were paid in an offshore tax haven illustrates that even prominent firms have not yet learned the lesson that their corporate governance must be beyond any reproach. Even more so when the same firms often are the custodians for large amounts of money that are entrusted to them by institutional and private investors who expect that the highest ethical business standards are observed. Very often the rank-and-file staff lower down the pecking order is not benefiting from such generous 'tax advice' (often paid by the employer for the favoured 'high earners') and this creates a situation where the cleaning staff may well pay more taxes on their meagre incomes than the staff that receives multi-million bonuses.