Would you leave UK if Reeves starts taxing wealth

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Just that really. Wondering if anyone else considering it. DCs both at Uni in next year. We had thought of living abroad a few months each year anyway but now UK is getting worse and worse for tax. Not super wealthy but millionaires on paper and with various investments. Been to advisor and would have IHT bill of £1 mill + if we stayed which makes me so angry. Worked hard for so many years to provide for our family and feels too harsh.
Spoke to our eldest about this and she even said so many of her friends have parents who have moved abroad in last few years. We are lucky we have options for countries, feels hard but then a flight is actually fast than driving up and down to where DC are at Uni so makes me wonder.....

Feel so fed up the constant threats to those who have saved for future and not got into debt through spending on material things or holidays, tech etc etc....

We are just enough years ahead of you @Meadowfinch that we hope to have been ahead enough to have handed on any assets just in time. But I suspect RR is just desperate enough to propose trying to play the 'I'm going to make this retroactive' card. Which would probably enough to make DH buy a (lightweight) bee-keepers suit as everyday wear.

That’s not correct. The last budget included a £70bn borrowing and tax hike.

It’s still had a damaging effect on growth due to NI policy so now they’re breaking the last pledge that it would be a one off and coming for more.

@Thisiswhathings very nicely, could you please describe the very best future that you see for the UK? I'd like to do what sort of world I would be choosing.

Either taxes go up or cut the money spent on pensioners

These very obvious aren't the only options. They're just the options you want.

11.4% of government spending is on pensions. There's another 89.6% of options.

What's the cull age?

I'm not aware of any program in place that successfully changed the demographics significantly in a country. I think south Korea are in a tight spot. So I'll go for a slow decline.

Mate, only dead people pay IHT. It's really not worth worrying about.

I had to pay 40% tax on a £500 bonus last week, which was actually awarded for real hard work, not sitting on my arse waiting for house price inflation to do its thing. I woild be fucking embarassed to be moaning half as much as you are.

Other money is spent on pensioners than just the state pension..
Yes of course there are other choices but add up 11.4 plus social care from councils , the NHS and others it's considerably bigger. Defence is a big pot of money but there is a war in Europe now .
I am saying we need to be honest if the answer is more tax to pay for where the the country is at demographically fine but let's not pretend otherwise. Or tinckering with minor budgets will make any real difference to peoples lives.

And the people receiving the 10.6% of government spending on working age welfare are also very high recipients of social care, NHS, education, policing and prisons.

What's your point?

Yeah, we pay at least 40% on our bonuses too - also awarded for really hard work - and don't complain about that 😂

We're complaining about being taxed another 40% after that 40% income tax..

Are you sure you wouldn't be complaining if you only got £180 of that £500... and the government took the other £320? That's what we're complaining about. And that's what they already take: Rachel Reeves is planning to take even more.

How high is very high? What's the numbers involved, I'd be interested to see ?

My point to fundamentally see a change for people who on here say " I pay massively high marginal rates of tax and get nothing for it " you need to make massive changes to the big ticket items as noted above. That's not going to happen. We can change government they still have the same deck , they shuffle the cards a bit different depending on what colour tie they wear.

I can't really be bothered setting myself up for your faux naive, self-righteous pretence that everyone costs the same.

Just ask any hospital doctor you know how much of their case load is largely self-inflicted through smoking, alcohol and substance abuse... and check how those correlate to income level. Do your own research, and try to do your own thinking instead of swallowing the lefty line.

11.4% of government spending is on pensions

But an ageing population doesn't just mean higher pension costs. It's higher social care costs, health care, housing, etc

I'm not aware of any program in place that successfully changed the demographics significantly in a country.

They haven't & no country has reversed birth rates once the drop below replacement rate.

And an ever-increasing welfare-dependent population doesn't just mean higher Universal Credit costs. It also means lower income tax receipts, lower corporation tax profits, lower growth (which means higher government borrowing rates),, higher NHS, social care and child social care costs as people disengage with society etc

And this isn't inevitable. People change their behaviour in reaction to government policy. Out tax and benefit system incentivises exactly the wrong behaviour.

An ageing population means ever increasing welfare dependency so you are agreeing with me? We already have more over 65 yr olds than under 15 yr olds.

Low growth has been an issue for nearly 2 decades as we never recovered from the 08 crash.

Err I was just asking what the numbers were , you said it I assumed you had seen it . I don't need to research it , it's not me making claims about working benefits.
Ive no idea what lefty line I've swallowed mind.

Explain to me why it’s not okay to tax people who have worked hard and saved. II have worked hard my entire life and saved a bit and have nothing like your levels of wealth… but I would happily pay more tax for a fairer society. t is a privilege to pay tax and we do it so we can live in a country in which the weakest don’t go to the wall. If that’s what you want at least be honest.

An aging population does result in increased costs. But it's actually not the main increase in welfare costs - see the graph. And aging is rather trickier to change than working-age employment behaviour...

But well done for your bonus @Ginmonkeyagain It's great when hard work is rewarded.

@strawberrybubblegum

What is the main increase in welfare costs then?

"Some £150.7 billion was spent on pensioners in 2024/25, accounting for nearly half (48%) of the total welfare budget."

"Spending on pensioners is forecast to reach £181.8 billion by 2029/30,"

180 billion!!!!

There is an increase in disability benefits but the ageing population will still take the majority of the welfare spend.

‘Happily pay more tax’. What income bracket do you think should be taxed more?

OK, that's a 20% increase.

the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast that total spending on health and disability benefits would rise from £64.7bn in 2023-24 to £100.7bn in 2029-30.

That's a 55% increase.

There are now 4.2 million working-age individuals (10.2%) receiving at least one health-related benefit, compared with 3.2 million (7.9%) in 2019 and it's forecast to rise to 5.4 million working-age individuals (12.4%) receiving a health-related benefit by 2028/29.

Why? Politicians claim not to know, but I think there's a clue in the fact that claiming health benefits increases the UC claim by about 30%., making not-working actually pay more than working full time in a NMW job (as well as obviously being more pleasant).

Who would have thought that people would do what is more pleasant for them? 12.8% of all people aged 16 to 24 years in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in April to June 2025.

That's what should worry you.

The leftie lie is that it's morally right to funnel an ever-increasing amounts of money from people who work (which includes state pensioners drawing down their state pension after a lifetime of work) and give it to people who don't work or work less than they could just because they have less money.

That's not morally right at all. Beyond a certain point, it's theft. It also turns into a spiral, with fewer and fewer people working, and isn't healthy or sustainable.

Yet the Left just keep doing it, despite being proved wrong again and again. I don't know why: whether they're unable to stretch their minds to consider dynamic behaviour, whether it's the dopamine hit of feeling self-righteous as they spend other people's money, or whether it really is a machiavellian plot to entrench their political support by deliberately increasing state dependency. Whatever the reason, it's utterly wrong.

Yes who would have thought people would do what’s easier and less work. Then you get Labour in and it goes up.