The News: UK Bonus Tax Hits Your Paycheck

You could soon feel the impact of the new UK tax on bankers' bonuses - even if you work in North America, Europe or Asia.

Bank managements are scrambling to cope with the multi-level playing field in compensation the tax threatens to create. Rather than penalizing their UK-based employees, The Wall Street Journal reports top-tier global institutions are choosing between absorbing the added tax expense or recouping it from their staff around the world.

Says the Journal: "The debate heated up late last week after Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said his bank was considering 'globalizing' the tax by lowering bonus pools throughout the German bank's global businesses. Other banks are considering the same option."

The two main options: leaving bonus pools unchanged and letting shareholders (via the bank's bottom line) bear the burden; or lowering bonus pools globally to offset the UK tax's impact.

The U.K. Treasury estimated banks would shrink their bonus pools and that revenue from the new tax would total about 500 million, according to the WSJ.

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