To think Reeves is missing a trick here?

Sounds like you don't like paying tax. Just pay your taxes mate.

@ThisTicklishFatball presumably to pay less % tax on your passive income than you would if it were income from going out to work? Do you think that’s fair (in comparison to a worker)?

https://theconversation.com/only-the-richest-ancient-athenians-paid-taxes-and-they-bragged-about-it-147249

If we want to look to the past we could also look at sortition to clean up politics.

(Now you know why learning is so despised among the rich ...)

What's your passive income? I'm always dying to know how to acquire one of those.

Absolutely not unreasonable. I’ve often wondered why the strongest advocates for higher taxation don’t simply make voluntary contributions through the HMRC system. It’s entirely possible to do — though I suspect it’s a little less satisfying if it can’t be performed in public view.

The sticker idea actually made me smile. A discreet enamel pin reading “Voluntary Tax Hero” would be a lovely way to recognise those who feel strongly about paying more.

Until that day, I can’t help noticing that the loudest voices calling for higher taxes seem to be the same ones quietly discussing “tax efficiency” with their accountants.

For context, I’m a stay-at-home mum with passive income and a high-earning husband. We’ve worked hard to build and protect what we have through saving, investing, and generally being sensible. Taxes already take a significant portion, and next year looks set to be even tougher. We’re simply making careful, lawful decisions to ensure we’re not paying more than we need to — not out of greed, but out of prudence.

I genuinely don’t see that as hoarding wealth. To me, it’s about encouraging others to create and manage their own prosperity rather than resenting those who’ve done so. A healthy economy needs people who are willing to build, invest, and create opportunity — not punish them for doing it well.

Oh no, serendipity, I'll go back to the drawing board on that one! But it would be nice to have something like that

When I used to read the Readers Digest, there was an end "filler" that posited that idea.

It pointed out that withing a few hours there would be inequality and by the end of the day you'd have people in poverty and people with much more than they started with.

And that things would just move from there to here.

I find this so interesting- I'd love to have a day called 'The Great Wealth Transfer' where millionaires from each county compete to donate the most to their counties' charities and most in need, with totalizers as a pp suggested a la Blue Peter

Not sure why that image for those posts but that funding has happened more than Labour’s pledge below.

Is there a word for conversation by bus ?

If there is, I imagine it's German.

It isn’t ‘targeting’ and that’s the issue isn’t it? A total failure of a social compact, of patriotism (because someone patriotic should want to invest in their country) and of morality (because hoarding wealth is immoral).

Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.
Clement Attlee

?!

Yes there’s a lot of soft soaping of tax rises. Those who want to pay more can, as you say Reeves can launch a voluntary scheme.

To stick to the manifesto leave the rest of us out of that.

They will do what they always do and claim the "environment has changed" and therefore any manifesto promises are no longer valid.

The electorate will get the chance to judge the truth of that at the next election.

Lots of people are willing to pay more tax? Really? This may be the impression that you get on Mumsnet,but from reading various newspapers and listening to LBC,I am definitely of the opinion that very very few people would happily pay more.

Plus Labour have hammered growth through tax rises. It’s incredible they’re not being taken to task for this:

“Our manifesto is fully costed and fully funded and requires no further tax increases.”

I don't think tax rises in general are inevitable but they are inevitable under this government.

People didn't vote in a Labour government expecting less spending did they after shouting about Tory austerity ?

Labour claimed that they were going to grow the economy and because of that they wouldn't need to raise taxes. But since pretty much the entire developed world is struggling to achieve any sort of growth at the moment that is a tall order.

So the choice is, i) cut spending, ii) borrow more, iii) grow the economy or iv) tax more.

i) is not typical Labour policy and they are having problems within their own party forcing through any cuts to social care budgets which are the large ones that make a difference. ii) is not possible without the markets hiking bond yields significantly. iii) is not happening anywhere in the developed world or in comparable economies to the UK. In fact only Liz Truss had the idea of remodelling the UK economy in order to achieve higher growth rates and look what happened to her.

So iv) looks pretty much inevitable from where I am standing.

And as for the assertion that tax rises are inevitable - I bloody hope not. The NI increase last year stalled our economy and potentially lost more than it raised through public services also having to pay the extra for their employees, and the effect of it slowing down the economy. Our growth is either nil or tiny amount forwards or backwards. Which as a poster pointed out upthread, means we are going backwards, as any growth percentage lower than inflation is effectively a recession.

But of course a huge chunk of society won't be paying any extra, they will be exempt

"That's one explanation. The other is that the welfare bill has rocketed and public spending has been out of control over the past few decades. We have pretended we can be a low tax country with good public services and a bloated welfare system. Now it's obvious we can't do this (no country can) so we have to make tough choices. This doesn't necessarily mean we have to become a high tax country though .."

So a political discussion then. If you are unhappy with the way the government runs then you have the opportunity to vote them out and if enough people agree with you then it might actually happen.

Aside from all of this, I think the idea of a voluntary tax contribution that was in any way significant (large in comparison to the total government budget) would be a complete non starter because it would be even more difficult to predict the revenues (which might vary considerably based on how happy the people were with the government as well as the strength of the economy). Therefore the government could well be faced with even more uncertainty over planning than it does at the moment, in a situation where borrowing money to smooth out budget holes is becoming extremely difficult (hence the rises in taxation).

I don't care so much about how the government runs the country in terms of what taxes are spent on. There are enough people around to argue about that. I do think it should run the country in a fiscally responsible way though because if it doesn't it will ruin us all. I think Reeves rules for sustainable spending/revenue generation are pretty good. I don't have much hope she will stick to them though.

I think we need some kind od wealth barometer on here, all this wealth hate, what kind of levels are we talking about?

I would never pay more tax than I need to because it would just go into the big melting pot and could be used for things that I don't agree with like free childcare. I do, however, support charities as I feel that money is useful.

If they introduce an additional property tax we will be hit quite badly. Our 4 bed 2 bath house in the South is worth 1.8M, joint income around £125 - 150K. In order to pay this wealth tax we would either have to cut costs to do so or try for a higher income which would also be taxed at high rates so will cost huge amounts more.

I think that the whole system needs an overhaul. Maybe we should be given tax points based on what we pay. We could then use these points to opt in for services that we want like childcare. If we use private education and private healthcare we get more points. This would then reduce the tax due.

I admit that this needs thinking about a lot more but to mean it seems a lot fairer.