The ordinary person is heavily taxed for travelling to and from work, or even to the local shops. But highly paid members of of the Serious Fraud Office have their commuting costs paid by the taxpayer. As 'they' say, “We are all in this together” - we pay - and 'they' spend it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ondon.html
That is the same HMRC outfit that persecutes every PAYE taxpayer, and every pensioner with more than one pension income; the same HMRC that insists on taxing any savings we have worked for.

Don't do as I do, do as I say

These people are totally shielded from the real world misery of the commuter.

_________________
Lets be careful out there !

The same HMRC that couldn't make a case against Harry Redknap stick.......

Why else transfer £189,000 offshore unless you intend to hide it. Fair play to Harry he got away with it and I don't like paying the revenue as much as anyone but clearly in prosecuting him they did not pay attention to detail.

They should be investigating the civil servants who sign these contract arrangements off. There was another case only last week where the chief exec of A4E the firm contracted by the Government to get the long term unemployed back into work. Despite having a target of 30% as a measure against success they only achieved 9% didn't stop her paying herself a dividend of £8.4 million from the £170 million paid by the taxpayer to front the scheme...

Same business model as the banks take tax payer money and give yourself bonuses!

The problem is; “They” are the same people who are benefiting from these arrangements; it would be a case of turkeys voting for Christmas. All civil servants should be firmly bolted into the PAYE system and taxed at source, with no special payments for travel, bonuses, or anything else.

These stories are going to build a head of steam that results in a degree of public anger similar to that resulting from the MPs expenses scandal. Civil servants are already regarded by the general public as being feather-bedded with a pension scheme that is far superior to anything in the private sector.

Whoa there WM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a Civil Servant who:
pays his own fares to work,
and pays his full PAYE,
and has strict leave restrictions this Olympic year
and has no prospect of a pay rise any time soon,
and is subject to a promotion ban
and has just had a pay cut - ie a huge pension contribution increase
and is subject to a pay review freeze,
and is about to be put on shifts without consultation -

(Ahem), please do not think for one minute that all Civil Servants are molly coddled . I would not be surprised if these expensive 'staff' are actually 'contractors' on supposedly short term contracts. In reality, I have seen contractors/consultants on contracts which are constantly extended - one chap is on his 18th year on £680 a day. He was successful in renegotiating his in October, whilst us PAYE slaves had their pay cut. I know of one who commutes from France, another from Spain.

I head a team of 7:- 2 staff and 5 contractors. Despite being the boss, I receive the second lowest pay after the 20 year old secretary who is on just under £20K (also a PAYE employee). All the others are on hugely higher fees than my salary. It's all to do with cooking the books. My dept cannot employ any more staff due to cuts, so they employ expensive contractors who don't show up on the figures as staff, but cost many time more.

Meanwhile, the contractors rape the public purse as they set up Ltd companies and pay their fees (sometimes £1500 or more a day) into the company. The company pay them (ie they take) £150 a day as salary and take the remainder as a monthly dividend payment from the company - taxed at 20%). So high pay and reduced taxes. This is where the greed is

So don't pick on us Civil Servants as all being 'feather-bedded' or 'spoilt', as some of us are being shafted daily for relatively low pay and are not very happy about it!

I am sure Westonman recognises the difference between those civil servants who abuse the system (there is more news today to suggest a few at the BBC are at it) and those on the lower rungs of the ladder who get shafted the same as the rest of us.

Pension annuities are fast becoming worthless anyway, this is a direct result of the amount of printing (QE) the BOE is employing and the fact they now seem addicted to it or perhaps it is the only weapon they have to stop the economy crashing completely.
In a way I am vindicated in spreading my retirement income across several savings vehicles rather than just a stock pension. Lansdown and Hargreaves (one of the largest investment advisor's in the pension's industry) would have me believe otherwise though with the content of their sales literature which lands on my mat regular as clockwork every fortnight. I can already see the grass roots of the next investment mis-selling scandal evolving.

As for A4E a family member worked here as a recruiter a while back and the trick is that they get paid to get people into work, and it does not matter if they get fired on the first day. Back on the dole, back on the A4E scheme and so on.

The creators are geniuses at milking the system.

Thanks Geezer; yes I do recognise the difference between the good and the bad.

SOT, you must be aware there are serious problems within the ranks of the Civil Service; maybe you are even more aware than those of us who have never been part of the Civil Service.

This latest report http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ondon.html adds a lot of weight to the understanding that there are very serious problems of tax avoidance for certain high-paid high-ranking civil servants.

Phillippa Williamson's employment at the SFO is not the first time this woman has benefited from tax avoidance as part of her civil service. We are told she had similar arrangements when previously working for HMRC.
The Solicitor General makes further revelations indicating that these special arrangements for tax avoidance are not uncommon. He goes on to say:
This story http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/90 ... ition.html also confirms that these tax avoidance measures are part-and parcel of the system benefiting those within the upper ranks of the Civil Service.

SOME PERSON or PERSONS within the upper ranks of the Civil Service are agreeing to these tax avoidance employment agreements for certain Civil Servants. And from my experience of human nature, whoever is agreeing to these employment terms will most likely be benefiting from some kind of 'payment in kind' or back-hander themselves.

To the general public there would appear to be some considerable overlap and significant commonality between Civil Servants and public employees. But I believe there is probably a huge difference between the two groupings. It suits those who form part of the behind-the-scenes inner Civil Service to publicly align themselves with public employees, and for public employees to consider themselves as Civil Servants. However, I suspect the true differences are more akin to the relationship between Directors and employees in the private sector; but the truth is usually something much different. Some of the differences between Civil Servants and public employees become clearer when we identify those in the public sector who 'benefit' from Common Purpose graduation courses. Then we can begin to see the possibility of a 'them and us' situation.

Here is the report:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1mRe5JrPV

£4million represents 275,862 hard-pressed and over-taxed TV licence payers.

Thanks for the clarification.

It's all very iffy. If as a taxpayer you are aggrieved (& you should be!), you wanna try working at the lower end of the Civil Service and seeing it going on all around you and there's nuffin you can do about it

That's OK. I have never directly worked as a public employee, but I have worked as a private sector contractor in Government establishments. Believe me, I have witnessed something of the division between civil servant authority figures and the public sector worker. I could tell you a story (not on a public forum) that would keep you awake for several nights.