Boss cuts

The chief executive of the Co-operative Group, Richard Pennycock, asked for a pay cut, saying his job had got easier now that the business is more steady — not to mention smaller. His basic pay will fall from £1.25m to £750,000 and his overall pay will drop 60%. Some other bosses who have recently taken pay cuts:
— Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent took a 42% pay cut last year, with his overall package falling from $25.2m to $14.6m.
— Cressida Pollock, CEO of English National Opera, took a 30% pay cut last September, partly in return for her job being made permanent.
— Simon Potter, chief executive of Bahamas Petroleum, this month deferred 90% of his pay so the company could continue to invest in spite of low oil prices.
— Isis fighters have all had their pay cut by 50%, according to documents obtained by the Middle East Forum in January. It was said that there would be no exceptions, suggesting bosses took a cut too.

Evasive answers

How much does tax evasion cost the government? Some estimates:
£70bn Public and Commercial Services Union, 2012
£82bn Richard Murphy, taxresearch.org.uk, September 2014
£16bn HMRC, December 2015

The lives of animals

The government backtracked on plans to repeal farm animal welfare codes. How truncated are the lives of farm animals?

Source: www.sustainabletable.org.au

Source: www.sustainabletable.org.au

Helping havens

A reminder of some of the ways in which the British taxpayer helps fund tax havens:
— The British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands are eligible to a share of €40m set aside by the European Development Fund for sustainable energy and marine biodiversity in the Caribbean. Both are also eligible for support under the £7m a year Overseas Territories Programme Fund, and can each send four patients a year to be treated under the NHS.
— The Turks and Caicos Islands received a £160m loan from the UK after it went bankrupt in 2009.
— Montserrat received £19.2m of aid from Dfid in 2015/16.