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The electorate, whilst holding a range of ideological viewpoints, are fully aware of the state this country has been allowed to get in to by successive governments.
The need to fund infrastructure rebuilding and maintenance (where applicable) is massive.
The need to keep public services running, and to optimise them and make them more efficient whilst providing adequate funding for a 21st century country is crucial to the security, wellbeing and future potential of the country.
Both of the above are hugely beneficial to people of all wealth levels.
The old scare story of places that wealth will 'run away' to don't look particularly appealing at the moment; the US is a nuthouse potentially about to implode, Europe is in the same boat as the UK, as are the likes of Canada and Australia perhaps.
Is this the perfect opportunity to make a fundamental change, utilising the strife of today and the risk we can all see ahead as a backboard to bounce off and to redefine who we are as a nation. We have made so many technological advances that a comfortable and happy basic existence for everybody in this country would be easy to achieve if we were just prepared to share a little. Could we even see some kind of social market economy emerge where the sum of happiness and real wealth - health and happiness of people and of our environment - sees some actual growth?
Democracy still works here - while we have, use it, and agitate for change.
Not saying we shouldn't have a wealth tax, but will it raise anywhere near enough? If we succeded in tapping everyone on the Sunday Times Rich List for 1% of their net worth, that would only raise £8bn. Which isn't very much in government finance terms.
Taxing people on income is much easier than doing it with assets (as medieval governments found). Quite apart from the fact that a lot of modern wealth is notional value of shareholding in businesses. A precarious figure at best and difficult to extract the funds (which may not be held in the UK to start off with).
We are going to have to bear some of the burden as well, either in tax increases or reduced services.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 11:16 - Mar 26 by Guthrum
Not saying we shouldn't have a wealth tax, but will it raise anywhere near enough? If we succeded in tapping everyone on the Sunday Times Rich List for 1% of their net worth, that would only raise £8bn. Which isn't very much in government finance terms.
Taxing people on income is much easier than doing it with assets (as medieval governments found). Quite apart from the fact that a lot of modern wealth is notional value of shareholding in businesses. A precarious figure at best and difficult to extract the funds (which may not be held in the UK to start off with).
We are going to have to bear some of the burden as well, either in tax increases or reduced services.
A sovereign wealth fund would be one of the simplest methods of easing the burden. The Govt would have passive income streams, appreciating assets, and would be able to grow capital at above inflation rates. I agree your point earlier that tax take hasn’t kept up, I.e the cost of procuring equipment for the NHS, and particularly building infrastructure (where inflation in construction has been well above CPI).
Really it’s something we should have done decades ago, to pay future pensions rather than the current Ponzi scheme of adding more people. That would have involved politicians thinking beyond the next election- we’ve been let down by parties of both colours.
[Post edited 26 Mar 12:09]
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Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 12:25 - Mar 26 with 1318 views
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 12:01 - Mar 26 by BlueBoots
Nailed it ..
"..a wealth tax, because they say that it might drive wealth creators or business people out of the country. Do you agree with that assessment?"
"I don't think that's true; I think some people will leave 'cos there are some people who are mean-minded to the extent that they would rather go and live in some sh!thole country, than pay an extra few thousand quid a year rent. So there are those people. Frankly, I'd be bloody pleased if they f**ked off..."
A sovereign wealth fund would be one of the simplest methods of easing the burden. The Govt would have passive income streams, appreciating assets, and would be able to grow capital at above inflation rates. I agree your point earlier that tax take hasn’t kept up, I.e the cost of procuring equipment for the NHS, and particularly building infrastructure (where inflation in construction has been well above CPI).
Really it’s something we should have done decades ago, to pay future pensions rather than the current Ponzi scheme of adding more people. That would have involved politicians thinking beyond the next election- we’ve been let down by parties of both colours.
[Post edited 26 Mar 12:09]
I hate to bring it back to Thatch but the time to be doing that was when the North Sea Oil money started rolling in. Norway did it and has recently bought half of Covent Garden, spending a tiny fraction of the fund's value. We decided that if we allowed oil companies to make loads of money out of the North Sea it would gradually make its way to wider society.
[Post edited 26 Mar 12:33]
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Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 12:58 - Mar 26 with 1265 views
A sovereign wealth fund would be one of the simplest methods of easing the burden. The Govt would have passive income streams, appreciating assets, and would be able to grow capital at above inflation rates. I agree your point earlier that tax take hasn’t kept up, I.e the cost of procuring equipment for the NHS, and particularly building infrastructure (where inflation in construction has been well above CPI).
Really it’s something we should have done decades ago, to pay future pensions rather than the current Ponzi scheme of adding more people. That would have involved politicians thinking beyond the next election- we’ve been let down by parties of both colours.
[Post edited 26 Mar 12:09]
Good plan in theory but we would inevitably screw up the fund by making poor decisions as the gov is run by political science students not business folk ie Reeves.
The rich will cry and make threats but they can't take real estate and big businesses with them. The government have the power to enforce the wealth tax. I suspect the real reason they don't want to do this at the moment is because it would indirectly hit American companies and investors which would anger Trump.
I would set the threshold higher at £25m. I think that would get a lot more support than £10m. You can imagine the clickbait articles saying if you won £10m on the lottery you would face a wealth tax. Utterly ridiculous obviously but some people would certainly swallow it.
How we don't have a national wealth fund I really don't know. We should have three voluntary government funds where people can donate if they choose to. One for a national wealth fund, one for defence and one for the NHS. I know you can make a donation to the government but you can't specify what it's used for and without some ringfencing it's not worth it.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 08:48 - Mar 26 by bluelagos
In principal - if you set it high enough - say wealth over £5-10m - and it was say 1-2% a year...
How much would it actually generate? (asking cos I don't know)
Any unintended consequences? (Some super wealthy people leaving?)
---------------- For me - I'd go for plenty more wealthy consumption taxes. You want a second home - you can pay x10 on the council tax and 25% stamp duty. (not for renting out)
You want a £100k+ car - you can pay £10k a year road tax
You want to fly - an escalator where flight taxes start at £100 a trip and increase by 10 every return trip.
--------- All of these would need to be properly assessed of course, but raising taxes from those who can afford it seems way better than going after benefit claimants.
pretty unfair to levy £500 on a couple with 3 children just so they can take an annual holiday abroad.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 13:14 - Mar 26 by mellowblue
pretty unfair to levy £500 on a couple with 3 children just so they can take an annual holiday abroad.
Agree completely. Frustrates me to hear solutions (whether for tax raising or environmental concerns) which basically price the poors out of nice things.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 13:14 - Mar 26 by mellowblue
pretty unfair to levy £500 on a couple with 3 children just so they can take an annual holiday abroad.
Fair comment - so maybe start at £10 and then do the escalator?
Agree ordinary working people should be able to take an annual holiday. What we need to address is the culture of multiple weekenders and try and limit business flights.
Back in the day I saw plenty of colleagues taking flights where alternatives were possible, basically pushing for the airmiles. There's a reason why airlines offer them - to encourage people to switch to them - but as they encourage more flying than would otherwise be the case.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 16:37 - Mar 26 by bluelagos
Fair comment - so maybe start at £10 and then do the escalator?
Agree ordinary working people should be able to take an annual holiday. What we need to address is the culture of multiple weekenders and try and limit business flights.
Back in the day I saw plenty of colleagues taking flights where alternatives were possible, basically pushing for the airmiles. There's a reason why airlines offer them - to encourage people to switch to them - but as they encourage more flying than would otherwise be the case.
Not sure it's possible. The airlines would react angrily and the government have backed another runway at Heathrow. I know not everything is about money but in such an interconnected world with roughly two million outbound flights per year that would have a big impact on tourism in Europe/the US so that could come up in trade talks. A flight tax would go against the EU's free movement so they are unlikely to have it within the EU and would likely be strongly against us implementing it. Not to mention all of the foreign owned airlines. You can imagine Trump's reaction if the American airlines were hit.
We do need to do something though just to stop the madness we see with day trips abroad, youtubers creating content based purely on spending as much time in the air as possible and taking as many flights in a day as possible and other ridiculous things. No idea what the answer is.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 17:07 - Mar 26 by RadioOrwell
That's not a bad idea ... and I'm getting state pension next month.
Last time I suggested the triple lock wasn't sustainable (which is patently isn't) I genuinely got called all sorts on here.
Am thick skinned so no worries - but so many people get angry at the mere suggestion that we may need to revise our pension provision given the ballooning costs of state pensions.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 16:37 - Mar 26 by bluelagos
Fair comment - so maybe start at £10 and then do the escalator?
Agree ordinary working people should be able to take an annual holiday. What we need to address is the culture of multiple weekenders and try and limit business flights.
Back in the day I saw plenty of colleagues taking flights where alternatives were possible, basically pushing for the airmiles. There's a reason why airlines offer them - to encourage people to switch to them - but as they encourage more flying than would otherwise be the case.
Air Passenger Tax is in place already . How the mechanics of implementing the escalator would work without it being a colossal f up , goodness knows. The extreme daytripper fad is something that annoys me.
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Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 17:54 - Mar 26 with 977 views
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 18:35 - Mar 26 by RadioOrwell
There should be an old guy / gal uprising about how the young are getting fkd much more than the old.
There was a thread yesterday criticising the minimum wage going up by more than inflation. For many people it's fine for some people to suffer but it shouldn't be them.
There are, of course, plenty of other older posters on here who would support a fairer balance but politically it's not something any party is going to touch for the next election or two at least.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 18:35 - Mar 26 by RadioOrwell
There should be an old guy / gal uprising about how the young are getting fkd much more than the old.
But so many don't seem to give a flying fck. "I bought a house and now they all spend loads of money on coffee so tough titty" seems to be the view of quite a few tbh
Truth is you can do everything society tells you too - go to Uni, get a decent career - and it's still much harder to get on the housing ladder than it was in my day. Why people can't see that - fiik
And that's before you consider that many of the older generation also had jobs for life and final salary pension schemes.
The lot of the younguns today is proper tough, no argument.
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 17:07 - Mar 26 by RadioOrwell
That's not a bad idea ... and I'm getting state pension next month.
What about those with pension income of 26k and who have already built their lives around the knowledge that they will receive the full state pension, complete with triple lock increases?
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 20:24 - Mar 26 by noggin
What about those with pension income of 26k and who have already built their lives around the knowledge that they will receive the full state pension, complete with triple lock increases?
The point about the triple lock is that in some years the pensions increase ahead of inflation. Limit the increases to inflation and am sure they will continue to be OK, just not given extra state pension on the back of employee pay rises being higher than inflation (when that happens)
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 20:24 - Mar 26 by noggin
What about those with pension income of 26k and who have already built their lives around the knowledge that they will receive the full state pension, complete with triple lock increases?
But the triple lock hasn't always existed. And in a case of someone like me, I've had to wait a further year to get my pension: others (including Waspi women) have or will have to wait longer.
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Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 21:20 - Mar 26 with 598 views
Perfect time for a wealth tax? on 11:16 - Mar 26 by Guthrum
Not saying we shouldn't have a wealth tax, but will it raise anywhere near enough? If we succeded in tapping everyone on the Sunday Times Rich List for 1% of their net worth, that would only raise £8bn. Which isn't very much in government finance terms.
Taxing people on income is much easier than doing it with assets (as medieval governments found). Quite apart from the fact that a lot of modern wealth is notional value of shareholding in businesses. A precarious figure at best and difficult to extract the funds (which may not be held in the UK to start off with).
We are going to have to bear some of the burden as well, either in tax increases or reduced services.
£8BN would cover 6 years of the winter fuel payment cut for starters. I believe the collective of rich people who’ve been lobbying for this have suggested 2%. There’s certainly some will out there (I’m not sure how representative that is).
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