Wealth Tax - Is it time to try?

[Bryn]

On 19/08/2024 at 12:22, hejammy said:

I always find this an interesting topic and most people join the bandwagon of "the richest must be taxed more"

 

So - 

 

The majority of public spending by the UK government goes on public health (£211.6 billion) and welfare (£208.8 billion). A significant portion also goes on interest payments for national debt (£128.4 billion), state pensions (£110 billion) and education (£105.5 billion).

Source: https://www.finder.com/uk/stocks-and-shares-isas/tax-statistics
 

Let's break these down, Public Health - it is a well known fact that generally speaking the "richer" you are the better your health - so traditionally the wealthy are a lower burden to the NHS, both because they are generally heathier but also some go down the privatised route which then takes away any burden to NHS spend. Welfare - this is fairly obvious - the "wealthy" do not burden this part of the spend. National debt - now this should be shared amongst everyone rightly so. State pensions - my view on this is that actually the wealthy probably have private pensions which they are more reliant on. Why not just scrap the state pension for those who have personal pensions. Education - again some of the wealthy tend to send their children to Independent schools, so again alleviating the tax burden they contribute to. 

 

So now research has shown that the top 10% of income taxpayers contribute around 60% of income tax. The top 50% of income taxpayers contribute the vast majority of income tax payments (90.5%).

 

So it begs the question - why should the "wealthier" contribute more tax? - I hear arguments like "but they are so rich they can" etc etc. 

 

If someone works hard their entire life to get to that "wealthy" bracket and another is happy to sit at home and not entertain the thought of hard work and lives of welfare, why is it fair that the 1st person has to fund the lifestyle of the 2nd - I know these are two extremes but you get my point. I understand that their are millions in between these 2 people. 

 

So let's take a look at the 2 biggest spends - health and welfare - one of the "easiest" ones to reduce is welfare, get more people into work, there are 1000s of jobs but a lot of people don't want to work (for various reasons, including them seeing the job as beneath them, not feeling like they will get paid enough, health reasons, etc etc) BUT the concept of needs must, have to be drilled into people. At the moment it's far to easy to say - sod it I won't work and live off welfare as it's "easier" and sometimes more lucrative. - this in a lot of occasions leads to unhealthy lifestyles and then further burdens the NHS. The government need to work on this. 

 

No offence intended by my post and I understand that there are people who really do need the welfare system to survive, but it's those "abusing" the ease of the welfare system which need to be looked at before we start asking for more and more tax from the wealthy. 

 

 

Who’s paying you to be an apologist for the rich? They’re perfectly capable of looking after themselves.

 

The idea that the poorest in our society are the ones distorting our economy and dragging the rest of us down is nonsense propagated by the ultra wealthy to maintain the status quo. The beneficial effects on society of a robust welfare system and sound public infrastructure have been demonstrated time and again and the fallacy of trickle-down economics firmly rebuffed. The reality is there is more than enough wealth to level the playing field and it’s being hoarded by a small minority who largely make their money from the labour of others, sequester it in ways that are economically inactive and then often largely live on credit, leveraged against their egregious wealth, so they don’t have any liquid capital to be taxed.

 

To be clear, the problem here is exploitative wealth. A professional who works 48 hours a week for a high five to low-six figure salary is not breaking society and existing mechanisms already extract a good amount from them. We’re talking multi-millionaires and billionaires. Corporations that endlessly raise prices and lower quality to maintain perpetual “growth” and maximise dividends whilst pretending wage rises are inflationary. Celebrities and their entourages who have to gouge fans for tickets to ensure there’s enough millions to bloat the bank accounts of their middle men. Businessmen and women who hoard their wealth in tax havens to evade tax. All of this in the name of “growth” which grows numbers on a spreadsheet but does absolutely nothing to nourish society. 

I genuinely wouldn’t know where to begin fixing it. The tools they’ve got to suppress dissent are so many. But a good start would be to stop Joe Public fighting their battles for them with this kind of nonsense.

 

[Trav Le Bleu]

8 hours ago, Bryn said:

 

 

Corporations that endlessly raise prices and lower quality to maintain perpetual “growth” and maximise dividends whilst pretending wage rises are inflationary.  

 

It is just so obviously evil that these entities never take a hit during financial crises, despite being best equipped to cope, yet they transfer the burden down the pyramid.

[Richard]

18 hours ago, Bryn said:

Who’s paying you to be an apologist for the rich? They’re perfectly capable of looking after themselves.

 

The idea that the poorest in our society are the ones distorting our economy and dragging the rest of us down is nonsense propagated by the ultra wealthy to maintain the status quo. The beneficial effects on society of a robust welfare system and sound public infrastructure have been demonstrated time and again and the fallacy of trickle-down economics firmly rebuffed. The reality is there is more than enough wealth to level the playing field and it’s being hoarded by a small minority who largely make their money from the labour of others, sequester it in ways that are economically inactive and then often largely live on credit, leveraged against their egregious wealth, so they don’t have any liquid capital to be taxed.

 

To be clear, the problem here is exploitative wealth. A professional who works 48 hours a week for a high five to low-six figure salary is not breaking society and existing mechanisms already extract a good amount from them. We’re talking multi-millionaires and billionaires. Corporations that endlessly raise prices and lower quality to maintain perpetual “growth” and maximise dividends whilst pretending wage rises are inflationary. Celebrities and their entourages who have to gouge fans for tickets to ensure there’s enough millions to bloat the bank accounts of their middle men. Businessmen and women who hoard their wealth in tax havens to evade tax. All of this in the name of “growth” which grows numbers on a spreadsheet but does absolutely nothing to nourish society. 

I genuinely wouldn’t know where to begin fixing it. The tools they’ve got to suppress dissent are so many. But a good start would be to stop Joe Public fighting their battles for them with this kind of nonsense.

 

This is the important distinction. If you're working for a salary (even if that's £150k+ a year) you aren't the problem and I don't think should be overly taxed. 

 

It's those that live off the cream of their assets, often passed on through generations, are the group that needs to be targeted by a wealth tax. Unfortunately a lot of them sit in the house of lords/commons, or have close friends who do. 

[FoxyPV]

We need a tax on the super wealthy because all policies trying to balance the books seem to target the poorest in society and ignore the massive avoidance here

[Greg2607]

On 20/08/2024 at 20:21, Robo61 said:

The Chart shows the average salary increase on a constant price basis i.e. after inflation is taken into account. 

 

You can debate how that figure is made up but what we should be asking is why it is so lagging so far behind other simlar economies.

I suspect it will be doing something to do with the fact we are a mainly service based economy....  i'm probably not smart enough to provide proof of that.... but we just don't really make (or own) anything anymore.   Service sector jobs are typically low paid.  So Job creation figures look good... but it's not really in "skilled labour".   It means that as a business it's relatively easy to keep salaries low. 

[Dahnsouff]

Seems likely we will just opt for the standard approach of screwing the middle earners to fail to fill the budget deficit, butI suppose we would hate to upset those poor political backers and their lovely lobbyists.

 

Had and still have more hope of a wealth tax under Labour than I ever did under the Tories, but early signs are not promising. Understand it’s self defeating from a political standpoint, but that does not make it wrong.

[Nalis]

11 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Seems likely we will just opt for the standard approach of screwing the middle earners to fail to fill the budget deficit, butI suppose we would hate to upset those poor political backers and their lovely lobbyists.

 

Had and still have more hope of a wealth tax under Labour than I ever did under the Tories, but early signs are not promising. Understand it’s self defeating from a political standpoint, but that does not make it wrong.

The lower middle class are the easiest target in terms of tax increases. The majority of these are the former working class and worked incredibly hard (and from social inequality) to get where they are. And their reward is to be blasted by governments and the media as the high fee earners that should be taxed to help others. 

 

Meanwhile the upper middle classes and upper classes maintain their wealth comfortably.

[FoxyPV]

On 02/09/2024 at 18:52, Nalis said:

The lower middle class are the easiest target in terms of tax increases. The majority of these are the former working class and worked incredibly hard (and from social inequality) to get where they are. And their reward is to be blasted by governments and the media as the high fee earners that should be taxed to help others. 

 

Meanwhile the upper middle classes and upper classes maintain their wealth comfortably. 

It's never tax the ultra wealthy, let's tax those already struggling.

 

Labour in power are a joke

[Zear0]

17 minutes ago, FoxyPV said:

It's never tax the ultra wealthy, let's tax those already struggling.

 

Labour in power are a joke

They've not had a budget yet. 

 

Agree they're going to shaft the middle earners, but still wait u till they've actually done so. 

[FoxyPV]

2% tax on ultra wealthy would generate c. 24bn

 

Increase corporation tax and tighten tax evasion on global companies 

[Dahnsouff]

Don’t tax your backers is the cowardly approach of all political parties unfortunately.

Time these people remembered who they work for.

[Dahnsouff]

https://taxingwealth.uk
 

[jgtuk]

16 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

https://taxingwealth.uk
 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/25/donald-trump-broligarchs-wealth-tax-brian-cox-succession

[kenny]

39 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

https://taxingwealth.uk
 

All of those appear to screw small business owners and not 'wealthy' people.

[Dahnsouff]

14 minutes ago, kenny said:

All of those appear to screw small business owners and not 'wealthy' people.

For sure some are less friendly to smaller/medium sized businesses, but if it was just big corporations, it would just be snuffed out by legal challenges. Do agree though that  it would be preferential if we just taxed those with assets over a certain value, but I cannot see that happening, again due to legal intervention.

[kenny]

3 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

For sure some are less friendly to smaller/medium sized businesses, but if it was just big corporations, it would just be snuffed out by legal challenges. Do agree though that  it would be preferential if we just taxed those with assets over a certain value, but I cannot see that happening, again due to legal intervention.

Maybe.

 

That website is an excellent blueprint of how not to do it though.

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, kenny said:

Maybe.

 

That website is an excellent blueprint of how not to do it though.

What would you suggest? I think the important thing is that the conversation is out there and kept in the public consciousness.

[kenny]

19 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

What would you suggest? I think the important thing is that the conversation is out there and kept in the public consciousness.

I don't know, but targeting SME owners will harm the country and the tax intake more than it will raise.

[Wolfox]

5 minutes ago, kenny said:

I don't know, but targeting SME owners will harm the country and the tax intake more than it will raise.

Sainsbury’s just made £bn in profit and then laid off a load of workers and claimed NI rises were to blame…. Thats the last time I shop with them…

 

Lots of hot air on this,  but it does have an impact on SME, but someone needs to take the burden if they can’t access the wealth horders

[kenny]

1 minute ago, Wolfox said:

Sainsbury’s just made £bn in profit and then laid off a load of workers and claimed NI rises were to blame…. Thats the last time I shop with them…

 

Lots of hot air on this,  but it does have an impact on SME, but someone needs to take the burden if they can’t access the wealth horders

8.2% isn't a great profit margin IMO.

 

 

[Dahnsouff]

20 minutes ago, kenny said:

I don't know, but targeting SME owners will harm the country and the tax intake more than it will raise.

Don’t disagree, the current situation cannot remain however. Maybe bring back the age of philanthropy…

[Tommy G]

29 minutes ago, Wolfox said:

Sainsbury’s just made £bn in profit and then laid off a load of workers and claimed NI rises were to blame…. Thats the last time I shop with them…

 

Lots of hot air on this,  but it does have an impact on SME, but someone needs to take the burden if they can’t access the wealth horders

I’ll be keeping a watch on their share price after this news 

[Wolfox]

2 hours ago, kenny said:

8.2% isn't a great profit margin IMO.

 

 

For supermarkets?  They always run on finer margins….
 

Can’t compare it to manufacturing with ~20% etc.  totally different business…

[kenny]

40 minutes ago, Wolfox said:

For supermarkets?  They always run on finer margins….
 

Can’t compare it to manufacturing with ~20% etc.  totally different business…

I'm sure you are correct but it's not exactly roaring with success as you suggested. When profits are stated as a figure rather than a percentage it always skews things as the businesses in question usually have large turnovers.

[HighPeakFox]

Won't someone think of the poor enormous business making only £1bn in profit?