Mr Diamond explained in his letter that the amount of corporation tax paid by Barclays was a result of it being able to reduce its bill due to "UK losses brought forward principally arising from credit write downs".
Most of these credit writedowns are understood to be related to losses Barclays made on holdings of US sub-prime debt securities that crashed in value.
Under UK tax law, companies incorporated in Britain are legitimately allowed to write off losses against their tax bill.
Without even getting into the moral or ethical issues surrounding whether there is any legitimacy in calling for corporation tax (remember: all you are doing when claiming tax of a legal persons is depreciating real wages for real people working for "them") there is something for all those #ukuncut idiots to consider.
What Barclays have done is absorbed the difference in value created by the property bubble and credit crunch into their taxable income and profits; in effect detoxifying the debt.
They have done this through a legal tax-reduction method that behaves like a tax cut which improves profitability whilst simultaneously removing some dangerous inflationary credit from the system.
All this shows is:
1. That tax-cuts, convoluted or direct, promote growth & profitability.
2. Tax-cuts detoxify debt by removing false price signals from a market.
And this is a bad thing?
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