What do you think of this idea of a wealth tax?

[LuluJakey1]

This is from The Guardian this afternoon. It is the third article I have seen in the Press two days promoting this idea.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/arts-wealth-tax-rishi-sunak-nhs-public-services?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Personally, I think it is bonkers. She seems to be suggesting that ALL wealth in this country - houses, savings, pensions, shares/paintings etc should be subjected to a one off tax of 10% to get us out of the financial mess.

DH and I would have to find about £80,000 cash! We'd have to sell the house?

Yes- Yes it is a good idea and you are BU to criticise it.
No- It is an awful idea and you are right to criticise it.

Scouse "My household pays a sh!t load of tax."

I deduce from what you say that your house receives several sh!tloads of income.

And clearly you resent paying tax on it.

If you have ever experienced not receiving sh!tloads of money, you will know which is preferable.

pay 1/3 of our mortgage on bloody council tax. About £300 per month!!!

If you’ve got children in state education, you’re quids in before you even look at any other services. Motorways and A roads are funded by central government. Police and fire service are also part funded centrally.

Our council tax is the same. We have no dependent children, no call on social services, basically we drive on B roads and get our bins emptied for ours. We pay it to benefit the society we live in.

What matter is how tax and benefits affect people's behaviour so if tax gets too high that people stop doing extra work like my doctor sibling then it's a problem (unless you want people to work less which is obviously also a point of view and if we all live on a lot less, don't travel much etc the planet likes that) just as plenty of women never return to work as their pay is less than full time childcare costs and some people are as well off working part time due to beneifts that they don't work full time.

if people are taxed on capital assets they will ensure they have fewer of them eg I have given my older children (and my ex husband on the divorce) just about all I have other than my house; so then you need to introduce a gift tax which I think Ireland has (and we used to have capital transfer tax in the UK of some kind years ago).. Gift taxes are quite hard to operate as people have to keep a record of when they paid a child's rent or paid for their car or gave them £100 at Christmas.

We already have a gift tax, linked to inheritance tax. If you make a substantial gift, you have to make sure you live for seven years afterwards.

@Alsohuman

I don’t resent paying the council tax we currently do. Our council aren’t actually terrible and although our child isn’t in school yet we know it will be paid back to us when they are.
My resentment was aimed at the ‘let’s just raise council tax on expensive houses to pay back the Covid debt’ comment

Xenia - everyone is entitled to check ups with their GP. It’s to ensure that potential problems are picked up as soon as possible rather than when you have symptoms. Blood pressure and cholesterol checks are the basics.

I want want or have check ups.

player.vimeo.com/video/410546330?autoplay=1&byline=0&title=0

@Parker231

Xenia - everyone is entitled to check ups with their GP. It’s to ensure that potential problems are picked up as soon as possible rather than when you have symptoms. Blood pressure and cholesterol checks are the basics.

Not actually true. Health checks are offered to specified groups according to need. If you don’t have an actual symptom they aren’t going to do a health screening for a healthy 35 year old.

Lemon - my GP practice does five yearly health checks from age 30. More frequently for older patients. The same for the practice where DH works.

(My post was supposed to say "don't want...")

Mine does off some kind of stuff but I don't use it. My choice. Free country enabled by all the tax I and others pay.

The NHS is free at source - it’s universally available although needs significantly more funding. If you choose not to use it that is your decision. Tax is paid proportional to your earnings so if you pay more tax it’s because you earn more. As a high earner I don’t have an issue with that.

@Xenia

Don't you go for your smear tests Xenia? I know it's a bit of a derail but you really should go.

Wealthy powerful people will not support a tax which reduces their wealth and power

The seriously wealthy will find many ways to avoid this sort of tax, the burden will as ever land on the middle earners.

The article is rubbish and doesn’t explain at all how it is supposed to work.

But it sounds like lots of ‘average’ families would be worse off while the super rich use accountants and loopholes to protect their money.

It’s always been thus, why would w Conservative government suggest anything else?!

KenDodd isn't that rather a nanny state socialist view point though - that everyone should do the same things, everyone share the same views, all women (who don't have a penis I suppose we need to add these days) should go for a smear test. Cannot we all be different if we choose to be just as I had a baby at home and some people think that is highly dangerous and others safer than hospital. I want to live in a free UK where people can make different choices and be different from others and all views are tolerated. That tends to come when socialism and communism are avoided.

Anyway for 10 years various people have been suggesting more taxes on capital, savings and homes. it is very difficult tin invoke it fairly - eg if all my income tax and NI was removed entirely and council tax I would be happy with a £20k or even £30k a year tax on my home. However the state just adds more tax on ore tax. Gordon Brown increased NI by 1% including on high earners and said that would fund the NHS for a generation. Instead the state took the money wasted it and taxes continued to go up and up after that.

When tax gets too high on earnings people work less. When tax is applied to a particular asset or gift people just change their behaviour lawfully to avoid it. We should following Sweden's lead and abolish inheritance tax for a start.

We should also consider offering parents an opt out of state school with a big tax rebate if they do as so many are having to educate at home now anyway they might as well have a massive tax cut in return to cover their full time childcare costs which result.

I want to live in a free UK where people can make different choices and be different from others and all views are tolerated.

You are completely free to choose not to have a smear test, even if for most women this is a bad choice, you are free to choose it, as you have done. We are even free to make choices for ourselves and our children that put other people in danger, such as not vaccinating.

We should also consider offering parents an opt out of state school with a big tax rebate

In many cases educating a child costs more than the tax paid by the parents, even reasonably affluent ones. What an excellent way to send state education down the pan so the kids from the poorest backgrounds are robbed of even more life chances. I want to see the playing field levelled not made even more unequal.

We can’t pick and choose which public services to pay for. The majority of the time I only use zones one and two on the Tube. I’d like to opt out of funding the other zones.

^"a nanny state socialist view point"*

A coded attack on the view that people in this country should not starve in the streets, or die from easily treatable diseases.

An attack on the view that education should be available, not restricted to the ability and willingness of parents to pay

An attack on the view that there should be a publicly funded fire service

An attack on the view that we should have a police force and courts maintained by the country at large.

An attack on the view that we should have food that is safe to eat, and water that is safe to drink.

Poly Toynbee has been banging on about this for years. It's one of her pet subjects. As an IFA and tax specialist I am totally in favour. I need the work!

It is just a matter of degree. At one extreme you have the state providing everything including food and housing allocated as in North Korea and at the other almost no state at all. like most people I am somewhere near the middle and whoever is most middle tends to win UK elections which is why Labour has not won one since 2005 and this high spending middle of the road Tory party has won power.

I support the NHS in some form but would prefer a bit less of a state and a bit lower tax.

Very few Labour or Tory supporters want people to starve or there to be no police. I don't support BLMUK's defunding of police, no prisons and that kind of thing.

One of the major issues with the NHS is the years of lack of funding by the Tories. The Tories have cut public services year in year out. They are the party of low spending.

like most people I am somewhere near the middle

No, you’re really not Xenia, you’re one of the most extreme right wing posters on MN.

I'd prefer less part-time working topped up by untaxed benefits. And less rental subsidies keeping rents high. Also untaxed.