To wonder if all those gleeful about PIP cuts are going to welcome people with serious mental health conditions as colleagues and employees?

It would be quicker to state a source than to keep replying like this. I think we all know why you can't won't

If it's basic then cite it. I'll wait...

Yes but the claim we keep hearing is that if we tax the rich we will necessarily end up with a low GDP, a crash in tax revenue and all sorts of other terrible outcomes. And the existence of all the countries I listed are a clear counterexample to that claim. They generally score higher than the UK on pretty much every metric of quality of life.

Yes there are a few low-tax-high-gdp countries, but a) that's logically irrelevant to the claim above, and b) they typically have awful quality of life scores. Give me Copenhagen over the UAE, any day of the week.

It’s basic economic fact. Go and do the work yourself. I do find it funny that so many people quote the Nordic style and don’t actually understand it. As you’ve proven. Absolutely laughing out loud at AI. Whatever you’ve out in hasn’t accounted for the quirks of the tax system. Oh and yes chat GPT can be wrong. It relies on human input. If the human doesn’t have a clue and doesn’t define the parameters enough - it won’t give a factual answer. Oh and it’s my job working with AI.

Everyone is expected to contribute a fair share - not the tiny minority. Hence the contribution and time defined welfare system.

Do you have a source for this claim? I've found it hard to get the actual stats. I was surprised by your claim though, so I asked chatgpt to compare tax progression the UK, Germany and Sweden. It stated the following:

Sweden has the most progressive tax system overall, with a much larger share of total tax revenue coming from the top 1%.

Germany also has a relatively high level of progressivity, but it relies more on indirect taxes (such as VAT) for lower-income groups.

The UK has a relatively less progressive tax system, with the top 1% contributing less than in Sweden and Germany, and the bottom 50% contributing a relatively higher share than in Sweden.

This is definitely inconsistent with what you're saying. Is chatgpt wrong? It certainly can happen!

Is that still your view if they are tax avoiders?

Yes, the UK would need to be completely restructured to achieve an outcome like the Scandi countries and Germany is well on the way to achieving UK levels of GDP per capita.

And of course there are countless examples of countries which have significantly lower tax burdens than the UK but higher levels of GDP per capita.

Their lower and middle earners pay a lot more tax. Higher earners pay about the same and have access to universal benefits such as childcare. Therefore, there is no lack of incentive to higher earners - like there is here. There are also a lot less state dependents and welfare is linked to overall contribution. Many, many reasons. To be more like the countries you state - it’s the middle and lower earners who need to pay more and those on welfare will be on defined and reduced benefits. If we moved over to the model used by many of these countries, it wouldn’t be the wealthy or higher earners who need to cough up.

Had to Google 😂 Unfortunately not. Taxes don’t pay themselves.

There are many countries that have a higher tax burden than the UK and yet also have a higher GDP per capita. These include Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

If they can maintain good living standards with high taxes, why would it be so apocalyptic for the UK to raise our own a little bit. What makes us different? Genuine question.

Ok so I had to Google VIPERS skills

@Andwhoisasking are you... still at school?

The loss from the non- doms alone is £8.9 billion. There are so many mistruths in what Gary Stephenson says it’s difficult to know where to start.

Looking forward to you replacing the lost wealth, tax and investment then.

Well, he's a highly qualified economist. As well as a very successful former trader. I'm certainly not either of those things, and barely scraped my GCSE maths! So, I trust him. But, you're of course entitled to a different view.

Sorry but Gary Stephenson is wrong.

@AzurePanda sorry for this very lazy reply 🤭

But Gary Stephenson explains it far better than I could. If you have approx 30 mins to spare, I highly recommend you watch/listen to this -

@WoodlandLove do you realise the financial implications of the wealthy leaving the UK? Have you looked at the estimates of the loss in tax revenue, the loss in VAT alone is phenomenal let alone all the other taxes they pay. And then of course there’s the huge impact on all the related jobs. You must pay an awful lot of tax if you think all that can be compensated for.

I'd love UBI. One of the reasons I voted for The Green Party at the last election.

But, if the mega rich aren't paying their share of tax, and hoarding all the houses as assets (in a housing crisis no less!!!) then it's a great thing if they leave! Good riddance to them. It should be made illegal to own homes in the UK if you're never here.

Are you ok?

There is nothing wrong with my moral compass thanks, I just have a different opinion to you.
You see I think it's pretty offensive to describe people who happen to be wealthy as scroungers but there you go

I'm not sure where to start with this!
I don't think it's envy in most cases. The vast majority of us don't desire super wealth. We just want a decent quality of life. So we don't envy the billionaires. We just want them to pay their share, not hoard wealth and assets, making acceptable living standards much harder to attain for the rest of us.
Almost all billionaires have gained their wealth either through inheritance or exploitation or both. Their passive income alone is eye-watering. The suggestion that they worked for it, so deserve it, is so offensive, as cleaners work extremely hard, shop assistants, hospital porters etc. Yet, they earn little more than minimum wage, if they're fortunate enough to even get full-time hours.
The filthy rich billionaires, who don't pay their share, are the real scroungers, not people with disabilities or mental illness claiming the minimal support they need to keep body and soul together.
Something has gone very wrong with Britain's moral compass, if people are defending the mega rich and attacking impoverished mentally ill people 😔

If 2% of your wealth was 20k you'd be well under that threshold.

You raise an interesting question though, namely how exactly to do progressive wealth taxation. There are arguments that changes to capital gains would be more efficient than straightforward taxes on wealth, precisely because of the liquidity issues you raise. And I'm completely open to that, if the numbers pan out. Whatever works.

I'd also point out that you've got to take into account the downstream benefits of reducing inequality over and above the initial funds raised by any tax. Political stability, strengthening of meritocracy, reduction in inflation, more wage growth, less crime, cheaper assets (especially houses) for the next generation, etc etc. Plus as inequality reduces, fewer people use complicated tax avoidance schemes. All of these have important economic benefits that don't necessarily show up in the initial yield, and could make a wealth tax worth it even if initial yields were modest.

Thanks for raising the question; I wish there was more debate on here about these details instead of the same stale old stuff about benefits. I hope that others chip in.