The rich ger richer

Well said, HHLimbo.

I agree the tories are ruining this country for no good reason.

I dont want extra 'charitable giving'. I want to live in an equitable society where the government actually do their job properly and look after everyone in the country (rather than try to ponce it off to charities and volunteers).

I want fair taxes and wages, that allow everyone in society to live with self respect, to contribute to their community and to be fairly supported and rewarded for their contribution.

See, I knew it was a good idea :)

Chil there is a Times Giving List. Published alongside rich list usually NI haven't read either this year, but what it generally quite noticeable is that British born entrepreneurs like my boss are extremely generous with charitable foundations and donations to things of artistic merit or scientific advancement. Those who've been born into wealth, sometimes less so. I agree that inheritance tax should be higher for those with 7 or 8 figure amounts to pass on. It would sort out a lot of inequalities in our world.

Well naturally I wouldn't go to such lengths to find out for myself, but I know what they themselves report via foundation/trust/personal accounts and from those details lodged with the Charity Commission, as reported in the Sunday Times Giving List.

I agree that it is up to them what they spend their money on, but if they don't want to be vilified then it makes sense to be seen to be philanthropic.

Quite apart from the fact that they really ought to feel morally obliged to act charitably rather than continuing to amass wealth.

It's up to them what they do with their money, but they shouldn't be surprised if we judge them for it.

How do you know the super rich don't give to charity??????? Up to them what they do with their money, same as people on benefits, no one tells them what to spend their money on

I think charitable giving could become the cultural norm if the will was there to make it happen. Put Geldof on the case and he'd embarrass the super-rich into opening their wallets. Publish a 'Times Give List' for the ones donating the most to charity and give out shame-making 'Ebeneezers' at awards ceremonies for the ones refusing to play. Make it social death to be seen to be mean. Are charitable gifts deduted from the estate before the IHT is paid or after?.... scope there if it's the latter. Think 'massive tax' is not effective.

The lack of philanthropy is a huge issue amongst the UK's rich and something any government should be doing something about.

For me, there is something immoral in accumulating such gross amounts of wealth and not using it for a worthy cause. They cant take it with them and there is only so much you can ever spend. What they have that isn't reinvested into this country's economy in the form of jobs or given to charity should be massively taxed.

We also need to increase the inheritance tax paid in this bracket. It is one thing saying that these people deserve this money because they worked for it (a whole other argument) but the ones who inherit it didn't and should get a free ride.

Makes me chuckle. The coalition has ruined the country in 12 months implementing about 25% of the cuts labour planned..........wait until it all really bites, just as it had to if labour had won.

Oh and my take home has shruck significantly with both labour and tory/LD tax increases. Trust me those of us on good salaries are not better off. You're talking about the super rich who rely on global share markets.......

If they are wealthier so is anyone's pension pot, ave wage or not.

I agree EW re charity but where in a free society does it say you have to give to charity or we'll take it into government coffers to spend on posh cars?????

Is this about the Sunday Times Rich List?

If so, then the article did indeed say that their fortunes had increased by about 18% over the past year but as we are only talking about the wealthiest 1000 people in the UK then you could tax them into oblivion and it still wouldn't make that much difference to uk tax receipts.

In fact, given that many of them are not even British nationals - from India, China, Russia, Sweden etc - and could base themselves anywhere it would be even more futile.

And their wealth is not yet back to 2008 levels, but I don't remember anyone getting cross with the government of the time back then; isn't this 'same old Tories' wearing a bit thin now?

Although I was irritated that fewer than 130 of those listed had given more than £1 million to charity las year - as the article said, they are enjoying a business friendly regime but if they aren't seen to be doing their bit they can hardly grumble if we vote for more confiscatory policies in the future.

Lots of the rich had businesses in sectors that weren't bailed out though.

I agree that the terms of he bailout to the banks was too generous, in that it hasn't done enough to curb the excesses of the system. But if the banks had gone under, it would have affected everyone, I can't see how most of society could have been immune from the affects...?

I do think a proper break up of the sensible traditional parts of the banking business (which affects most of the country and needs to be protected) and the riskier speculative end should have been done alongside the bailout. Now is not too late, but don't think Osbourne has the balls. The small number of those who have money caught up in the speculative end of the markets should be left to stand or fall on their own, as it is with hedgefunds.

The inrease of 20% in th4 wealth of the richest over the last year has nothing to do with th3 Tories being in power.

That wealth increase happened because of the bailout to the banking system in 2008-10 that caused te stockmarket and property market to recover.

That recovery in asset values happned entirely because of policies implemented by central banks around the world including especially the Federal Reserve and Bank of England. In the UK, Labour also implemented a tax payer led rescue of banks.

In my view the wealthy were bailed out by Govt and central banks and that shouldnt have happened. There has been little or no trickle down effect.

I strongly believe in markets and risk taking and wealth creation but in reality the bailout was socialism for the rich. We needed rich people to go bankrupt and bankers to lose their jobs. Instead, the rich got much richer and bankers got bonuses - purley on the back of central bank and tax payer bailouts.

Schumpeterian purging of our economy is what is really still required before it can truely heal.

I'm glad you get what I'm saying Elephants. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself in these kind of debates.

I agree it's sad that the not everyone is getting richer at the moment. But it's not us and them, the uber rich and the rest of society will stand or fall together (with a few notable exceptions of oligarchs who've set up in the UK for lifestyle reasons and would be able to move quickly back to the countries where their businesses are based if our economy went into prolonged turmoil.)
Those parts of the private sector that are doing very well are employing. Public sector needs to shed jobs to stabilise our debt and overall economy. Hopefully, more and more private companies will start doing this over next year or two. This time lasts year my boss had lost money, we all earned less than usual, just about managed to avoid redundancies. Didn't increase headcount at all. We've bounced back faster than a lot of other industries, but signs are good that others will follow.

I think it's depolable that the GAP between rich and poor increased so much under labour though, and I doubt will improve under coalition. But I don't blame the rich wealth creators, i blame years of successive government for short sighted policy that caused a race to the bottom with our education system.

I'd have thought is made sense that very wealthy or independently wealthy people could survive a recession in better shape than people on low or medium incomes, reliant on a variable job market. I'm not distressed if the top 1 or 2% are earning more so long as they are paying taxes in the same proportion. However, I also think it's time that government got to grips with creating a culture of philanthropy, the same as there is in the USA.

I get what you're saying, Checkmate, but surely the point is no-one would mind if the rich get richer as long as people in general get richer at the same time, but if the poor are getting poorer as well then surely all is not rosy? Your colleagues may be employing childminders etc but this is obviously not what's happening nationide or the figures would be different.

As someone who works for the company of a person listed on the Times Rich List, I'm very glad he's got richer over the past year.

He is already paying huge amounts of various different taxation (personal, company, NI, etc...) as are all his employees, 90% of whom are based in UK too, where the company began and is based.

Because of the huge risks he took in setting up he company around 15 years ago, huge numbers of people have been employed. And because we made money last year, we are growing company headcount by 50% over the next year (as and when we can find UK graduates with the right skills, which is problematic but a discussion for another day.)
Most of the people we employ are highly educated - I don't know of anyone without a degree who has been hired and most have phds. But all of us create employment ourselves, by hiring nannies or cm and by spending our wages within the UK economy.

I know for certain that if my boss had lost 20% of his wealth over past year, presumably the OP would be jubilent, but as my job would be at risk, we wouldn't be hiring more staff, and the government would be getting substantially less corporation tax from us this year and would have less in the public purse, this would be bad for the country of course. So op's like this really piss me off.

Not at all surprised. Just been on hols to wealthy part of South of England (commuter belt to London, visiting family) from North. I see why those making policy don't give a shit. You'd be hard pushed to ever stumble across a person who is disabled and requiring benefits, unemployed, long term sick, minority group or who has another reason for needing help where we were staying. These over priveliged fuckers are deciding on policy such as disability benefits etc - what do you expect? Straight from one ivory tower (school) to the next (oxbridge), then straight to work in politics. Career politicians. If this government isn't enough to get the rest of us mobilised, I don't know what is... Less priveliged people don't exist in their worlds.

LFN, you are shallow and unhappy and that shines through in everything I have ever read by you.. Money will never make you happy.

LFN you clearly have no idea of what the lowest in society have to face...with that in mind..STOP POSTING TILL YOU GET SOME EMPATHY!!

Oh for goodness sake, clearly it's a bad thing that poor people are getting poorer, regardless of which party is in power. But I think you have to be living in "fairy dairy land" (thanks Cameron) if you still believe that rich people getting richer eventually benefits everyone. It doesn't. And even if once this were (partly) true in terms of industry etc, now that most money is made in money markets it just doesn't compute that people need to employ lots of others in order to get richer.

Plus if you are earning the minimum wage without hope of improvement then you are never going to get richer unless that goes up. And somehow when it comes to suggesting that, it's all the same people who say "rich people bring riches to everyone" who jump in to prevent any of those actual riches being passed on to ordinary employees.

The unemployment we're seeing today has nothing to do with Tory policy - you seem to forget that Labour had been in power for 13 years and spent money like it was going out of fashion / Socialism works great until you run out of other people's money right?
The Conservatives are doing what they always have to do - sorting out the mess Labour left us in -
Just admit it - your party couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.