6k bonus

[claystones]

Does anyone know if the £6000 bonus they have offered is tax free

[Slim2none]

Or does anyone know if the £6000 "bonus" will be "affordable" for the company when the cull actually happens? Smoke and mirrors?

[RobertT]

Does anyone know if the £6000 bonus they have offered is tax free

The info on the app says:

Up to 9 months pay plus an additional redundancy flat payment of £6000(pro rata).

I take that to mean it would be tax free as long as the total is less than £30k.

[RobertT]

Or does anyone know if the £6000 "bonus" will be "affordable" for the company when the cull actually happens? Smoke and mirrors?

I don't see why not. I assume they see it as an investment.

[Slim2none]

I get that Robert, but in order to make an investment, you would need to have money available to invest. According to the company, they don't have any money. Maybe I'm looking at this in a pessimistic and distrustful way, however I can only use the information supplied and the track record of statements to formulate an opinion. The "offer" is not an offer, it is, if you read the title of the document that was left on the benches in our DO, an exercise to determine the level of interest and to gauge how much or how little it is likely to cost the company. One interesting line in the document is "£30,000 of any redundancy payment would normally be tax free. Does that imply that may not be the case in an offer going forward. Point being, it is very difficult to trust any statements being put out by the company at this time and we trust these statements at our own peril. How can we make a decision or state interest on this without clear and absolute knowledge of what is truthfully being offered.

[Slim2none]

Further to the above...its funny how we have a thread with an awful lot of posts stating that there is zero trust in the CEO! Some of these same posters seem very quick to respond and seem readily trusting that offers from the CEO are somehow genuine!
The man is completely devoid of moral compass.

[RobertT]

I get that Robert, but in order to make an investment, you would need to have money available to invest. According to the company, they don't have any money. Maybe I'm looking at this in a pessimistic and distrustful way, however I can only use the information supplied and the track record of statements to formulate an opinion. The "offer" is not an offer it is, if you read the title of the document that was left on the benches in our DO, an exercise to determine the level of interest and to gauge how much or how little it is likely to cost the company. One interesting line in the document is "£30,000 of any redundancy payment would normally be tax free. Does that imply that may not be the case in an offer going forward. Point being, it is very difficult to trust any statements being put out by the company at this time and we trust these statements at our own peril. How can we make a decision or state interest on this without clear and absolute knowledge of what is truthfully being offered.

They have money, or even if they don't they have the ability to borrow.

It's clear the info so far only relates to people showing an interest. They will only make an offer to those people if they choose to.

Even the gov website says the first £30k of any redundancy package will be usually tax free:
https://www.gov.uk/termination-payments ... surance-on

[Slim2none]

I don't necessarily disagree Robert. My point is, without clear definable statement of intent from the company, on this or any other single issue, how can anyone make an informed decision either way?

Everyone will make up their own minds and that's exactly how it should be. Fully informed decisions are always better than hopeful ones.

[RobertT]

I agree, there hasn't been enough info on exactly what RM want. But a lot of the changes they want rely on the outcome of revisions in every DO, which are ongoing.
So I suspect we won't know the details until that process is over.

[Slim2none]

Exactly. Once the revision process is complete, either with or without cwu/workforce agreement, they should be able to make a firm offering regarding redundancy. As to my original point, this current exercise might possibly have no relevance to what is actually offered.
All we can do is wait...and not rush blindly into anything (binding or not) until we know the facts.

[RobertT]

I suspect RM already have their agenda with regards to every revision and will try and push through what they want. They already have their target savings for each office!

I can't see them changing the terms for VR. They've said it's a max of 9 months pay plus an extra £6k if you show an interest before 27th November.
Personally, I believe that and don't go along with the conspiracy theories!

Based on my situation, I see no reason not to show my hand and have registered my interest.

[Slim2none]

Yes, they do and yes, I read your post regarding the redundancy. If it works for you then great. I hope your faith is realised.

Not sure why it's a conspiracy theory?
I think my points are based on historical action from ST. CEO has shown his capacity to even back track on legal agreements, so unfortunately I don't have the same faith in this particular exercise offering that you do. Again individual choice.

[neviboss]

So £6000 x 10000 is £60M, in theory that plus the redundancy payments would make MASSIVE losses this financial year, way bigger than this £1M per day cobblers?

[Slim2none]

Apparently they could borrow it. I was under the impression the business has gone from £758M profit to £219M loss in 6 months so really not such a good footing for borrowing circa £60M. Of course it's business borrowing not like you and me. They have massive assets in property etc, but they're already exploring the sell off of some of those and ST has publicly stated that we (RM letters) are loss making & PFW has a value of £0 plus they refuse to cross subsidise from GLS so err yeah. Maybe big Daniel is going to fund it directly?

[RobertT]

So £6000 x 10000 is £60M, in theory that plus the redundancy payments would make MASSIVE losses this financial year, way bigger than this £1M per day cobblers?

I don't know how much the average redundancy payment would be, but mine adds up to about £25k. If you multiply that by the 6,000 people they say they could pay off, that's £150 million.

It's a lot of money, but a drop in the ocean compared to the total wage bill. Which will see ongoing savings in pension contributions and employer NIC's, aswell as the wages themselves.

The company will see it as an upfront cost, to realise year on year savings going forward. Just as they do with the new parcel sorting machines, etc.