'They haven't actually broken the law, but they haven't acted according to its spirit,' British Treasury minister David Gauke told BBC Radio 4. 'I suspect the bank in question is regretting what it has done. It's not going to do them any reputational good. They will have difficult explanations to some of their customers.'
Bloomberg, SCMP, February 29
Give me the name of that bank, Mr Gauke. I would like to sign up as a customer. It need make no explanations to me. It is obviously a bank that looks after its customers' interests by turning over only as little of their money as it must to bloodsucker governments. That's my kind of bank.
But I don't need Mr Gauke to name it. A government louse ducking behind the usual identity of 'person familiar with the situation' has already identified it as Barclays and termed what it did as 'highly abusive', two words that have echoed their way through the British media.
What Barclays did was propose that it should not have to pay tax on earnings from a buy-back of its own bonds. Its auditors said it should not have to do so and other banks have not done so.
Barclays, however, took the step of providing for that tax in its profit and loss account should the tax authorities disallow its claim and it also drew their attention to what it was doing.