The Environment Secretary Michael Gove launched an attack on water company bosses – accusing their firms of avoiding billions of pounds in tax, overpaying executives and failing to properly invest in infrastructure. He said some companies had been funnelling almost all their profits to shareholders, while having “hidden behind complex financial structures” in off-shore tax havens to avoid the Inland Revenue.
Gove said: “Far too often, there is evidence that water companies – your water companies – have not been acting sufficiently in the public interest. Some companies have been playing the system for the benefit of wealthy managers and owners, at the expense of consumers and the environment.”
He went on: “They have shielded themselves from scrutiny, hidden behind complex financial structures, avoided paying taxes, have rewarded the already well-off, kept charges higher than they needed to be and allowed leaks, pollution and other failures to persist for far too long.” He said companies are guilty of “prevarication and procrastination, ducking and diving and dragging of feet”.
Water companies had paid out £18.1bn to shareholders between 2007 and 2016, a figure almost equal to the total profit over the same period.
Gove went on: “And who made those decisions? Well, of course, it’s the people in this room – chief executives and board members of the privatised water companies. “And you must realise that in the public eye you are very handsomely remunerated.”
He singled out the chief executive of United Utilities, who he said was paid £2.8m per year, Severn Trent’s chief executive, £2.42m per year, and the chief executives at Anglian and Yorkshire who he said are paid £1.2m a year, while the boss of Thames Water receives £960,000 a year.
Gove then turned his fire on the companies’ tax arrangements, saying some are not contributing enough to Treasury coffers, and others are “very much not”.
“Last year Anglian, Southern and Thames paid no corporation tax. Indeed Thames has paid no corporation tax for a decade. Ten years of shareholders getting millions, the chief executive getting hundreds of thousands, and the public purse getting nothing. And water companies have been able to minimise their tax obligations, even as many have failed to minimise leaks and pollution, because some of their best brains appear to be as intent on financial engineering just as much as real engineering.” He accused four water companies – Thames, Southern, Anglian and Yorkshire – of making “particularly keen use of sophisticated financial engineering”. These companies had “set up multi-layered corporate structures of dizzying complexity” involving multiple subsidiaries with some based in offshore tax havens. “The use of these offshore entities makes company affairs more opaque and their financial activities less transparent, and customers have an absolute right to question their use. As well as Thames, Southern and Yorkshire – have also set up offshore financial structures in the Cayman Islands.” to “avoid proper scrutiny”.
He explained that regulator Ofwat asks customers to pay water companies an amount that allows firms to maintain a prudent balance sheet divided on a 60:40 basis between debt and equity. The 40 per cent is designed explicitly as a ‘buffer zone’, he said, that protects companies from financial shocks and to ensure they have enough money to invest. “The banks and funds which own these companies have increased their debt levels to nearly 80 per cent – or 83 per cent, in the case of Thames. And because the debt levels are higher than those assumed by Ofwat – and the repayments are cheaper than they would be on equity returns, and are paid out before tax to boot – the companies have made supernormal gains.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/michael-gove-water-company-bosses-speech-attack-audience-tax-executive-pay-a8235531.html
Gove said: “Far too often, there is evidence that water companies – your water companies – have not been acting sufficiently in the public interest. Some companies have been playing the system for the benefit of wealthy managers and owners, at the expense of consumers and the environment.”
He went on: “They have shielded themselves from scrutiny, hidden behind complex financial structures, avoided paying taxes, have rewarded the already well-off, kept charges higher than they needed to be and allowed leaks, pollution and other failures to persist for far too long.” He said companies are guilty of “prevarication and procrastination, ducking and diving and dragging of feet”.
Water companies had paid out £18.1bn to shareholders between 2007 and 2016, a figure almost equal to the total profit over the same period.
Gove went on: “And who made those decisions? Well, of course, it’s the people in this room – chief executives and board members of the privatised water companies. “And you must realise that in the public eye you are very handsomely remunerated.”
He singled out the chief executive of United Utilities, who he said was paid £2.8m per year, Severn Trent’s chief executive, £2.42m per year, and the chief executives at Anglian and Yorkshire who he said are paid £1.2m a year, while the boss of Thames Water receives £960,000 a year.
Gove then turned his fire on the companies’ tax arrangements, saying some are not contributing enough to Treasury coffers, and others are “very much not”.
“Last year Anglian, Southern and Thames paid no corporation tax. Indeed Thames has paid no corporation tax for a decade. Ten years of shareholders getting millions, the chief executive getting hundreds of thousands, and the public purse getting nothing. And water companies have been able to minimise their tax obligations, even as many have failed to minimise leaks and pollution, because some of their best brains appear to be as intent on financial engineering just as much as real engineering.” He accused four water companies – Thames, Southern, Anglian and Yorkshire – of making “particularly keen use of sophisticated financial engineering”. These companies had “set up multi-layered corporate structures of dizzying complexity” involving multiple subsidiaries with some based in offshore tax havens. “The use of these offshore entities makes company affairs more opaque and their financial activities less transparent, and customers have an absolute right to question their use. As well as Thames, Southern and Yorkshire – have also set up offshore financial structures in the Cayman Islands.” to “avoid proper scrutiny”.
He explained that regulator Ofwat asks customers to pay water companies an amount that allows firms to maintain a prudent balance sheet divided on a 60:40 basis between debt and equity. The 40 per cent is designed explicitly as a ‘buffer zone’, he said, that protects companies from financial shocks and to ensure they have enough money to invest. “The banks and funds which own these companies have increased their debt levels to nearly 80 per cent – or 83 per cent, in the case of Thames. And because the debt levels are higher than those assumed by Ofwat – and the repayments are cheaper than they would be on equity returns, and are paid out before tax to boot – the companies have made supernormal gains.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/michael-gove-water-company-bosses-speech-attack-audience-tax-executive-pay-a8235531.html
1 comment:
The contempt underpinning the headline of this piece points to the real villain. The profligacy of water company executives is hardly a revelation, just as the criminal greed of Carillion executives was nothing new - that particular story of the filched billions soon became old news. What happened about the Paradise Papers? Or the Panama Papers? Or all the many others over the years? The mock outrage about the misconduct of these 'bad apples' soon evaporates and the public shrug their shoulders and move on. But who can blame the Water Company executives, or the Carillion directors, or Google, or Apple, or Starbucks, or the myriad of other corporations that minimise their social obligations by avoiding tax in order to maximise their profits. That is what good capitalists do. They have no concern about the damage they do to society. Their stance is amoral as is the system they adhere to. Capitalism is the route cause of the malaise of our society. It is this that needs to be weeded out, not the individual culprits who are in a way hostages of the system they serve.
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