To think rich people steal money all the time and that’s often why they’re rich?

They are mobile. Their assets mostly are not. We should tax them on money nade in this country wherever they decide to go and live (as the US govt does).

Depends on how you interpret putting their money to work in life changing ways to benefit people who really need it, doesn’t it? For me it’s not ego enhancing donations to already wealthy institutions, it’s alleviating starvation or improving health for large numbers of disadvantaged people. Bill Gates’ health projects are a prime example.

This 'fariness' or 'paying their share' argument just doesn't fly at all. Whether we like it or not - we live in a global economy now. People with £50 - £100m are mobile and can move if they wish. Personally I'd rather have them here paying at least some tax, employing people and spending money here. You never know - they might even consider building another business.

The labour narrative of 'working people are good' and 'wealth creators are bad and we should take some of their wealth' is divisive.

They are though. Massive amounts going to charitable causes and research. I couldn't give a monkeys whether their name is on a University building or whatever. I guess you'd have a problem with the Jospeh Rowntree foundation ??

Writing cohesively is important too.

@Sally20099 where did you get that top 1% on £160k from? Are you just looking at salaries? The top 1% according to ONS had minimum wealth of £3,121,500. We aren't talking about people earning well from paid employment. Wealth and wealth hoarding are the problem.

Yep and then you get all the morons who defend the "hard work" and suggest the wealth is earned / deserved. These people are parasites.

Im Sure there are some like that, it you must be aware that a lot of the benefit bill is in-work benefits? We are literally subsidising big business out of the public purse so they can get away with paying their workers less than a living wage and rake in profits.

Agreed. All take and no give!

Absolutely nobody with a brain is suggesting that people on £160,000 should be shouldering the burden more than they already are. It's the people with say £50/£100 million or more. THEY are the ones who aren't paying their share.

I suspect the top 1% of the UK earn a lot more than 160k. But I was thinking of the global 1% who are exemplified more by the super rich of the US, who make money out of every transaction that average US citizens carry out.
And someone on 160k will use more of the services available in the UK than the people on 30k. I.e. the police, armed forces etc are protecting their property; they are likely to use the road network to a greater extent, and also the (subsidised) trains.

People who earn less devour less of the infrastructure of a country than those who are well-paid because they are not about doing things, not buying in large amounts (financial protection provided by the government being used). Most legislation and most state protection is geared to the advantage of the well-off rather than the badly-off. So the woman on 30k is not getting as much for her tax as the woman on 160k, even though the woman on 160k is paying more out in tax.
NB We are the 1% - anyone living in the developed world, including the woman on 30k. The 1% of the 1% (us) are the super rich.

To what extent do people struggle because they failed to apply themselves at school etc? Because my secondary school was pretty dire with lots of kids creating havoc. The few like me who applied themselves did well. I have not much sympathy for those that flatly refused to take school seriously as made it harder for others to study. It’s easy for middle classes to wring their hands.

Sorry. Wrong end of the grammar - and I am called Grammarnut: own goal entirely!

Must be idyllic living in those communities on a breadline. Recurring threads about run down towns disagree with this somehow.

As to rich living their lives - I bet you haven't met too many.

I've worked in shops, nursing homes, factories, pubs, then moved to an office - no moving up in each job, just changing jobs to change the grind to something different. Working hard in the office job enabled me to get some training and experience and then start to move up, more choices granted, but none handed to me. If you think that's in some way having good choices to choose from, I'd be really interested in what you think someone without good choices to choose from looks like. I didn't "marry well", other than choosing an equally hard working man who went from cleaning to factory work to office work and again put in the hours. None of this was presented, it's hard work, long hours and determination to make change; I don't see that as having good choices to choose from, I see it as little or no choice but to graft, although I guess the choice to work two jobs to pay the rent was a good one.

Would it ever happen though?
If some countries sign up to this those who don't can clean up by providing tax havens🤷🏻‍♀️

I mean this is a mad thing to generalise about. But having known rich people and benefit cheats I will disagree with this.

Rich people tend to take - resources, energy, time and give only when it is also of benefit to themselves. They send their children away to school and summer camps, put elderly parents in care homes. They take expensive holidays, waste a lot.

Most everyone I know who lives in the breadline (including claiming fraudulently or fiddling their claims) is also massively investing in their community through participating in local networks of care and support, they volunteer but don’t call it that (by for example running a little football team, or tuck shop) they buy second hand, take few or zero holidays. They care for their own kids and parents and do it to a much higher standard than ‘paid for care’.

You talk like it's one person taking a tiny bit of money and that benefit cheats are lovely people! The system has been badly exploited for years! How many people went straight from school into council housing and bred kid after kid! Back in the late 90's when was 17 I got into a relationship with someone whose brother & sister in law sat on benefits in a council house with two kids, the brother used to be all over the place doing cash jobs and raiding skips for things to sell. He used to play the bad back card and when the doctor started refusing to sign him off, he went to find another surgery, when that fell flat he played the depression game. He laughingly showed me a cupboard full of boxes of unused anti depressants. His family hated him for it. I left that relationship in 2003.

They've tightened up a lot of other issues with things like a 2 child cap but the disability benefit system is exploding! It alarms me how many people can just claim they've got depression and anxiety and not work. And now all your neurological things like ADHD, autism etc are also being used to claim - every other kid is dragged to a doctor to be diagnosed with something these days, it's not feasible to give everybody with these conditions a life on benefits! The government are wanting to reform it for a reason because it's a massive, growing problem!

OP, it has been like this since the dawn of civilisation, many revolutions have been about breaking down this type of inequality and the results are invariably another similar or worse (think communist China in the 50's). The super rich and powerful are not sitting ducks, with the help of modern technology, they and their wealth (which brings jobs and investments) can disappear in an instant. Be glad that our living standards are high, our lives are relatively secure, things can get a whole lot worse if we are not careful. I do however agree with some PP who pointed out the inefficiencies of our government, they are the people we can influence but who would want the job of sorting all the mess out, on relatively low pay? Philanthropic competent people are not exactly sloshing around...
You see, it's catch 22.

Sadly the figure I found several places was over £15B

Nails it.

There are well over 3,000,000 millionaires in the UK and in 2024 only 9500 of them left. I posted a reputable source upthread. Even the loss of 16,000 is under one half of one percent and does not break anything.

Furthermore, more millionaires are being created all the time.

This is such a bizarre perspective to me.

I would consider myself wealthy. This is because of family money / intergenerational wealth / inheritance or whatever you want to call it. I’m not wealthy because I work harder than anyone else, but I’m also not wealthy because I’m a thief or have done anything illegal.

You could argue that a lot of my family’s wealth was made unethically because of the time they lived in, however there was also a lot of poverty in previous generations of my family if you go back far enough.

My net worth is in the seven figures and I am a stay at home mum because I want to be, but also because I have no financial urge to work. I don’t plan on ever going back to paid employment. The dividends from my investments earn more than I would be paid if I went back to my job. I chose my career based on my interests and what I thought would be useful to society because I had family money to fall back on.

We are on track to reach a net worth in the 8 figures within the next decade, provide the value of our assets continue to increase. For us we are increasing our wealth through investing in stocks and we also own property which has increased in value. There is nothing illegal about that. We pay our taxes and give to charity, whilst also enjoying a very nice life. I have friends and family who are also wealthy but are still nice and normal people and they’ve made their money from a lot of different ways, including being born into wealth.

Are you talking about billionaires? I’d agree that businesses like Amazon are acting unethically even if they’re following the law.

Just because it doesn’t work like that now doesn’t mean it couldn’t. Raise your aspirations. You won’t find me whining about shit public services, by the way. They can’t be any other way after austerity.

All the stupid people voted you are being unreasonable.