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Barclays to axe tax arm and cut 2,000 jobs

by Daniel Grote on Feb 11, 2013 at 07:28

Barclays is to shut down controversial tax arm Structured Capital Markets and cut around 2,000 investment banking jobs as part of a restructuring of the business, according to reports.

The tax division was last year ordered by the Treasury to repay £500 million after structuring two ‘aggressive’ loopholes to avoid paying tax.

Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins (pictured) will describe its activities as ‘legal’ but ‘incompatible with our purpose’, pledging ‘a new approach for a new era of banking’.

The cull of around 2,000 jobs will represent a nearly 10% reduction in staff for the bank’s 23,000-strong investment banking division.

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1 comment so far. Why not have your say?

Usually found sitting on the fence

Feb 11, 2013 at 10:50

My sympathies go out to the 2000 individuals that face losing their job, not nice.

From the Banks perspective this has to be a win win scenario. Hard to imagine the margins would remain with the extra funding going to HMRC to tackle such schemes and therefore this is a small sacrifice that could yield some media driven good will. Obviously, it is just an opinion and the bank could get the PR totally wrong and they could end up looking more mercenary and manipulative than ever before...

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