Simple really - they want to paint two different pictures.
One to shareholders of massive profits
Another to HMRC of not so massive profits due to losses still being incurred due to the banking crisis - although they are currently "banking" this loss, rather than cashing it in now.
Neither are outright wrong. HMRC need to know how much was actually made, so they can tax them, but investors generally want to see the underlying profitability of the outfit.
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Deferred tax assets
"Barclays stockpiles 'losses' to soften tax obligations"
The European Banking Authority has estimated that Barclays will have €4bn (£3.3bn) of "deferred tax assets" this year, compared with €5bn at Royal Bank of Scotland, and €7.3bn at Lloyds Banking Group.
Deferred tax assets are highly prized by companies because they can be set against tax claims to reduce the final bill.
They are usually created when a company makes a loss and can be held for several years to offset against future profits. However, while RBS and Lloyds made enormous losses in the crisis, Barclays always declared a profit at group level.
Last year, Barclays generated an extra £591m in "tax losses carried forward" despite making £6bn of profits before tax. The tax gain suggests the bank made £2bn of losses, which the bank said "mainly relates to entities in the USA, the UK and Spain".
However, a spokesman declined to comment on where the losses were sustained or whether the loss-making entities had been closed.
The results also revealed that the bank reduced its corporate tax bill by £365m in 2010 to £1.52bn by using deferred tax assets - £205m of which arose "from the reorganisation of Spanish securitisation financing". (AtW's comment: this would have never happened under Spanish Inquisition)
More from the source: Barclays stockpiles 'losses' to soften tax obligations - Telegraph
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