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Original poster

Polasnski’s revenue-neutral wealth tax?

37 replies

AshLeaf · 19/10/2025 19:49

Polanski suggested this morning that a wealth tax is the right thing to do, even if it raises no revenue, and encourages some very wealthy people to move abroad. He justifies this because it would make society less unequal, which is, he suggests, a positive end in itself.

I wondered what other people thought about this? I see little to be gained by instituting a tax with no fiscal benefit, and no community benefit in reducing spend in our economy be removing some of the biggest spenders (if they move abroad). What do you think?

OP posts:
BIossomtoes · 20/10/2025 09:17

Labraradabrador · 20/10/2025 09:15

doubling down just shows laziness. The exact wording was in the context of my comparison with education where ‘best’ would be a suitable descriptor of top decile.

the point being made (should you care to engage in substance of the debate rather than cherry pick specific language to take offence) is that removing the top decile doesn’t improve the performance of the 90%.

Show quote history

It wasn’t even your post I addressed. Stop trying to pick a fight for the sake of it.

BIossomtoes · 20/10/2025 09:15

Malariahilaria · 20/10/2025 09:13

As sad as it is, it won't matter what the greens think might work if Zach thinks women have penises. He'll be tripped up on that topic over and over and the middle ground that might have voted for him, will just think he's a captured anti women candidate.

The young vote doesn’t care.

Labraradabrador · 20/10/2025 09:15

BIossomtoes · 20/10/2025 09:06

”Wealthiest/best” is pretty unambiguous regardless of context.

doubling down just shows laziness. The exact wording was in the context of my comparison with education where ‘best’ would be a suitable descriptor of top decile.

the point being made (should you care to engage in substance of the debate rather than cherry pick specific language to take offence) is that removing the top decile doesn’t improve the performance of the 90%.

Malariahilaria · 20/10/2025 09:13

As sad as it is, it won't matter what the greens think might work if Zach thinks women have penises. He'll be tripped up on that topic over and over and the middle ground that might have voted for him, will just think he's a captured anti women candidate.

BIossomtoes · 20/10/2025 09:06

”Wealthiest/best” is pretty unambiguous regardless of context.

Labraradabrador · 20/10/2025 09:02

@BIossomtoes no one has made that assertion, which will be clear if you go back and read in full context rather than picking on isolated phrases within a larger piece of text.

BIossomtoes · 20/10/2025 08:46

It’s an interesting assumption that the wealthiest 10% are also the best.

Original poster
AshLeaf · 19/10/2025 21:09

😆 hard agree on both points. And the second does make me want to check Polanski’s economic working for um inconsistencies

OP posts:
SlipperyLizard · 19/10/2025 21:06

A wealth tax sounds brilliant, but in reality is pie in the sky, my understanding is that whenever such a tax has been implemented it has raised far less than assumed.

i agree with @Labraradabrador just getting rid of the wealthiest/best 10% of whatever you want to make “more equal” will make it more equal, but without anyone actually benefitting. So what is the point?

I refuse to trust any party that thinks (1) the UK’s economic woes can be solved by a wealth tax and (2) women can have penises.

Original poster
AshLeaf · 19/10/2025 20:58

I definitely agree that a more equal society would be a very good thing. I’d be very positive about eg breaking up the trust funds which mean that massively wealthy people, especially those with a lot of land get to pay very little in taxes. I’d also support a system like the US has, where if you hold a UK passport, then you pay a(t least a proportion) of your tax to the UK government..
However, I’d question why we don’t want to encourage people in our country to start, and to grow businesses? When people who have earned (rather than inherited) a great deal of money leave the country, they take that energy, enthusiasm and creativity with them. I’m not sure that’s a good thing?
Honestly, I think it would be better for the UK if people like Lewis Hamilton and Martin Lewis lived here and contributed (at least their tax and their spending) to our economy. If not, why not?

OP posts:
Labraradabrador · 19/10/2025 20:52

Even if a more equal society is the ultimate goal, this argument assumes the means by which a more equal society is achieved makes no difference - levelling down is just as good as levelling up. If you closed the top 10% of schools every year, education would be more equal, but hard to see how that improved education even if one benefit is people feel better about the average school.

personally I think social mobility is more important than equality - people should be rewarded for hard work, talent, ingenuity and a willingness to take risks.

RolandH · 19/10/2025 20:05

There have been some studies which indicated that more equal societies score more highly on measures such as social cohesion, happiness, etc. You will need to look this up yourself as I can't remember what the title of the book was (or individual studies) but you can imagine - if this is true - it may be because people more genuinely feel that we are "all in this together". The wealth leaving the country would specifically be currency and spending power, which though nice to have is not everything. Plus there is the worry that the rich's economic power gives them disproportionate political power.

Of course, all these arguments are open to dispute. In particular, I doubt that some section of the wealthy leaving would really dramatically change the mindset of the establishment (though if we get to the stage were we have a wealth tax, we maybe have a change in the establishment anyway).

In general, I think the idea that we could be a poorer (in GDP terms) country, but actually have a better quality of life and make better decisions overall, isn't crazy, which helps to consider whether what the Green Party is proposing actually makes sense or not, once we get away from the idea that the Wealthy leaving the country=bad.