Barclays picks up Diamond's tax bill

Barclays has revealed that three of its executives were rewarded with pay and bonuses worth over six million pounds each for their work in 2011.Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bob Diamond was given a total of £6.3m in remuneration, which includes a £1.35m basic salary, a £2.7m deferred bonus in shares and £2.2m in long-term incentives. Nevertheless, it was well under the £9m pay packet he received in 2010, unless you include deferred pay awards from previous years which kicked in during 2012, in which case his total pay package was much higher at £16m. It was still not high enough, apparently, to cover the £5.75m tax bill which Diamond was faced with when he relocated to the UK from the US after taking on the Chief Executive Officer role at Barclays at the beginning of 2011.Barclays has picked up the tab for the tax bill, despite its well publicised reluctance to contribute to the coffers of UK plc; last month it was reportedly forced to pay £0.5bn of tax to the UK tax-man that it had attempted to avoid paying through schemes which exploited tax loopholes.Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott acidly observed: "The only tax Barclays pay seems to be for Bob on his bonus."Meanwhile, two other unnamed executives - who the Independent speculates are Rich Ricci and Jerry del Missier, co-CEOs of investment banking unit Barclays Capital - were rewarded with pay and bonuses of £6.7m and £6.5m.Last month, Barclays reports a 3% fall in total pre-tax profits in 2011, from £6,065m to £5,879m, mainly attributable to a £1,000m provision for the redress of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) that wasn't recorded the year before.Banker's pay has come under intense scrutiny recently after it was revealed that Stephen Hester, the head of Royal Bank of Scotland, received a controversial share award bonus award of £963,000, an award that he later waived due to mounting political pressure.BC