The poorest half of the Uk own 3% of the wealth

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Am I being unreasonable to think we should be taking steps to change this as a country.

And in case you wonder if your household income is less than around £33k you are in the bottom 50%

It didn't use to be this bad. So it CAN be better, we don't have to shrug and accept it.

Societies with less distance between the people at the top and at the bottom have less crime and people are happier - for obvious reasons I think.

I would prefer a society with less gap.

As for social mobility - if some people are to go up, they will need to displace others who will move down. There is no way the elite - the rich and the powerful as a group - will allow something that will negatively impact on a cohort of their children.

woo maybe we need to cream money off the rich and spend it on teaching parenting skills then? I agree on the aspirations front - I find the negative view of education from some sectors of society astounding and in my view particularly British. For example, when I lived in France, even the "man with a van" who helped us move had a degree in philosophy and happily talked to my DH about Sartre. When I came back to the uk to do a PhD I was amazed that my peers were still doing the self deprecating thing of insisting they weren't very clever and didn't work very hard. I was exasperated that even at PhD level we had to pretend we weren't really "square" and into education. What is it in this country that makes education something to be derided and not strived for?

rabbitrisen, I'm glad you found the link interesting/useful.
I think it can be quite a revelation (it was to me, at least) when you realise the proportion of the country's financial issues which can be traced back to the fundamentals of the current money system. Also when you realise that it is totally unnecessary, and that there are much more sensible alternatives. A fundamental change in this would not be in the interests of the super-rich, which will make it very tricky to change. But possible, if enough people are informed and on-board.

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/

TheTertiumSquid I find the negative view of education from some sectors of society astounding and in my view particularly British. For example, when I lived in France, even the "man with a van" who helped us move had a degree in philosophy and happily talked to my DH about Sartre

I agree with this, in fact I wonder if it is ingrained in education itself and too many are actually being taught to have no education and to blame their perceived lack of success on someone else/the government/the English, etc..

Weatherall I'm curious...your wealth tax on the value of people's homes - how exactly do you see that working? Do you base it on the actual value of the home, or on the value less the mortgage? Also, bearing in mind it's going to be based on a paper value, rather than a cash gain, what happens when the house value drops during the same period of ownership? Perhaps into negative equity. Would you give a rebate ?

There are 2 ways of taxing house wealth- council tax, based on value (this needs updating and the higher bands massively increased) and stamp duty which should be closer to VAT rates.

This is the case in most other countries (who haven't had such a housing crisis).

So Germany charges 3.5% tax on house purchase and 20% capital gains after 10 years or standard income tax under 10 years 15-42%

So my last house sale and purchase would have cost £70k in Germany vs £35k here.

And Second homes are often taxed at a higher rate than primary residence. So a holiday home in Italy costs 7% in stamp duty.

This would significantly slow buy to let and property as investment, all those london mansions sitting empty that are earning more than their owners. Makes way more sense than a mansion tax.

I agree that council tax needs an overhaul and should be much higher, also that tax on btl and second homes need to be more punitive (speaking as someone who would be affected by all of this).

I'm less convinced about higher stamp duty and capital gains. Families living in London are already effectively stuck in properties that have soared in value but are too small for them, yet the discrepancy between the value of theirs and the cost of a bigger place anywhere nearby is so big it's just not viable, the only option to get more space is to move outside London (which people are doing in droves). Adding a further burden of tax to all that wouldn't help and I'm not sure the foreign billionaires with all the empty properties, or the flats/houses bought unseen and flipped, would give a shit. More tax revenue, yes, but not helping ordinary people, just making London even more of a ghost town occasionally visited by Russian oligarchs, Asian investors and Arabs.

I think they should limit personal wealth to only a billion each or something like that. After that you have to redistribute it yourself through charities etc. Not trust funds! I would not ask people to give more of their hard earned money to be wasted by the government, though. I think it should be up to individuals how they want their money is spent.

It probably needs more thought though. .

Yes I wish there were more Andrew Carnegies amongst the rich of today.

@Onairjunkie nothing's changed in my finances since I wrote that (more wrinkles maybe).

I don't think I'm in the top 3% though. You need to be sitting on £2.5m of wealth (eg not mortgage). I'll be in the top 5% so not complaining.

I still fundamentally think things should be much more fairly divided.

I vote against my economic self interest because I would like to see things change.

It's possible to have money and still wish things were more fair!

A big cause of this is work contracts. So many people are in working poverty, most of those with good contracts don't see how bad the rest have it and it really isn't right. Everyone deserves a decent return for their effort as well as secure contracts with a pension etc. But very many don't have these, they are essentially luxuries.

raise benefits and control wages a manager cant earn more then x times that of the sales assistant etc and it go up the chain so the CEO needs to raise everyones wages if he wants to have a pay rise himself.

get rid of bonus culture and close all tax loopholes.

This is a very interesting thread but started in 2014!

VelvetChairGirl unfortunately in a free market you wouldn't be able to do that, What you could do instead is have ALL publicly financed organisations have a structure where the top earner can only earn say 10 times the bottom earners rate (all the things that can't run for "the profit motive" Care, health, education, policing etc) And a rule that publicly funded institutions will only do business with organisations that adhere to the same rule.

The thing is governments of all colours are terrible at redistributing wealth.

They waste so much money on inefficiencies and failed projects and nuclear weapons why would you want to give them more ?

If there was an effective way to redistribute wealth then most people would support it but it's never been done without causing massive damage to society.

Speaking personally I pay tax and national insurance on my income, council tax, vat on everything applicable inc petrol and energy , alcohol duty and car tax as do most people.

I'll likely pay inheritance tax on my parents estate and my daughter will on mine.
Inheritance tax isn't a magic bullet to solve the issue of intergenerational wealth

Equity is a horrific aim because it must involve force.

A better question is why didn't the governments use North Sea oil money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund ? Norway had the same windfall as we did they have over a trillion pounds invested - we have 2 trillion pounds of debt ....

@Camomila

This is a very interesting thread but started in 2014!

Yes sorry I resurrected a zombie thread by mistake.

Someone on another thread had found it in my posting history and were calling out what they thought were inconsistencies.

............ and the top 1% of UK earners pay more than one third of the total tax bill.

If you earn £33,000 you are in the top 2%, yes 2%, of earners worldwide! howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=33000&countryCode=GBR&household%5Badults%5D=1&household%5Bchildren%5D=0