Do you still agree with Christine Lagarde?

[rojash]

After she said the Greek's problem was that they didn't pay their taxes, it turns out she doesn't pay tax herself.

"As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes."

http://www.guardian.c...e-lagarde-pays-no-tax

[douglas9401]

Do as I say, not as I do. It was ever so and of course that's not the point waffle waffle, self justification etc etc.
Snouts in the trough every one of them!

[rockyracoon]

I still agree with what she said, but she didn't have the right to say it, bloody hypocrite. This world is full of gravy trains!

[emmie]

Douglas, as i was going to add, they are so fond of telling us not to do things, yet all the while behaving badly.

[emmie]

I do agree with what she said, and will say it again, many of the Greek people have only themselves to blame.

[Mampara]

I would agree with anything she said!

[ladybirder]

Nice work if you can get it eh. Not saying it's right but she's not cheating the system. It's the system's fault. As head of the IMF I think she had every right to say what she said.

[Nibble]

Unfortunately, as the salaries & benefits for all Diplomats & servants of the UN agencies were set in stone at the Breton Woods conferences in 1946, much as we can, do & did disagree with the payments being made, as noted by the reporter, as below:

For many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international taxpayers' expense.

During the 1944 economic conference at Bretton Woods, where the IMF was created, American and British politicians disagreed over salaries for the bureaucrats. British delegates, including the economist John Maynard Keynes, considered the American proposals for salaries to be "monstrous", but lost the argument.


Without a total renegotiation of the entire UN charter, with all the attendant bluster that would create - any multi-national treaties having taken many decades to even reach a memorandum of conscensus, and the deeply entrencheed snouts in the trough, this will never happen, much as it desperatly needs to be.

[Nibble]

^ sorry Breton Woods was 1944 - oops

[sp1814]

Christine Lagarde is the second coolest grey-haired woman in the world (after Helen Mirren) and frankly, she's as sexy as hell and I couldn't give a tinkers cuss whether she paid her taxes or not.

No, seriously - she isn't NOT paying tax. Her salary isn't taxable. These are two different things completely.

And she has that sexy French drawl.

[ladybirder]

I'd put her at No.1 sp. She's smarter than Helen Mirren. Judy Dench at No.3 with her sparkly full of fun eyes.

[Ellipsis]

Do you still agree with Christine Lagarde?

Yes. She legitimately pays no tax. The people she was complaining about don't.

They should be paying their taxes to their country to help their country get out of the mess it's in. But who would she pay tax to? She works for the United Nations ...

[Brenden]

Certainly still agree with what she said.

[jake-the-peg]

Blimey I hope some of you can still breathe the thin atmosphere on top of those high horses

So if you weren't taxed at source and were sent a bill for tax and you thouht you could get away without paying - would you still send the government a cheque?

Especially those of you who use expressions like "snouts in the trough" or think the Greek people only have thmselves to blame

[Sqad]

I agree with sp1814....she has that very important "je ne sais quoi" about her.

[DTCwordfan]

trust you lot to see something sexy in an international banking ATM......

[Nibble]

Loads a money's always sexy, (not the harry Enfield character though!)

[bazwillrun]

at the very least her position and what she says about the Greeks is disingenuous.

Just because these people have their noses in troughs with contracts as ridiculous as a lot of premier footballers and dont have to pay tax on thier earnings (how ludicrous is that) , it doesnt exactly come across too well if your telling others they should be.

Its no different to the people over here lecturing others that use the tax laws to pay as little tax as possible, its not right its not fair blah blah, all perfectly legal though, isnt it ?!, yeah but its a bitter pill to swallow when theyre doing it themselves.

as always do as i say not as I do

[sp1814]

Hmm - so the consensus is split between Christine Lagarde being sexy enough to do what she wants, and greedy enough to know better.

Quite a nicely balanced conclusion.

Incidentally ladybirder, the reason Helen is number one is because a) she's a dame - and as we all know, 'there is nothing like a dame' and b) Helen in her sixties looks ASTONISHING in that photo wearing the red bikini.

[jno]

I recently re-viewed one of her first films, Age of Consent, sp1814. (As part of my Michael Powell studies, obviously.) She looked fine not wearing a red bikini, I have to say.

As Ellipsis says, who would she pay tax to?

[bazwillrun]

@ jno

why cant they form a fund that the tax is payed into and use the taxes to offset their running costs that everybody else pays for.

At the end of the day its another massive gravy train and they dont want to , because if they really felt that bad about it they would have sorted it by now.

After all who wants or likes to pay tax, nobody, but luckily for them they can get away with it legally, and they intend to keep it that way at all costs (pun intended).