Britain to impose one-off tax on bankers' bonuses

Having worked in the investment banking industry before this wonderful MBA program, I would like to share my views on this issue with you.

The reasoning behind the idea makes some sense: Investment banks would have all gone bust without the help of governments. This is true even for houses like Deutsche Bank that didn't get money directly - had the US not bailed out AIG, Deutsche Bank would have lost billions. And, being a taxpayer, I don't like the idea that banks just take my money and pass it on to some Aston Martin drivers.

On the other hand: The British government actually owns large parts of the financial industry. If they are concerned about the capital of their banks, why don't they just keep RBS and Lloyds from paying bonuses? If they are concerned about the capital of the whole industry, why don't they increase capital requirements? If they want high-income people to share the burden, why don't they just increase the income tax?

And how long will it take banks to find ways to get around this tax, anyway?

Here's my interpretation: "We don't want to pay bonuses at our banks, but we don't want our best people to leave. And we want to demonstrate that we hate these City guys just as much as everybody else does. And if the tories don't like our one-off tax, we can really push them into the "only for the rich" corner. If they support it, they'll lose voters to the liberal party. Looks like we can only win! Let's do it! Yeah!"

Tom.