Is a wealth tax the only way?

[Cuppasoupmonster]

…of raising capital for proper public service reform and not just sticking plaster ‘solutions’. Just interested to hear others thoughts.

YANBU = yes it is
YABU = no it isn’t

Well it’s not rocket science is it? Even with 17% interest rates people weren’t paying as much for housing as they are today, as a proportion of their wage.

The report clearly offers the options of taxing the genuinely, recognisably wealthy - people worth £10m are just wealthy. I don't care where it came from, you can't argue need as an excuse for skiving taxes at that degree of wealth.

I am quite tickled by the idea that voters recognise COVID as a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. How is it, when measured against the 2008 bank bailout and ten years of austerity and the costs of Brexit (because surprisingly it doesn't seem to have saved us £350m a week to spend on the NHS)?

However, I would be in favour of it, except that this government is the most dishonest I think I have seen yet. There is no point paying any tax to this government because they are kleptocrats who give it to their friends. NHS won't see a brass farthing of it.

So you've chosen to ignore the main point - that unless you are one of the tiny number of people who can afford to buy a house without a mortgage, you actually pay way more for it than the initial selling price. In other words, the difference between so-called purchase price and the current market value is not pure 'profit'.

You really have seem to resent boomers! Life was not the bed of roses back then that you seem to imagine, you know. People started work younger, worked longer hours, with far fewer paid days off than nowadays, little or no flexibility over hours in most jobs, and the idea of equal pay for both sexes was only just beginning. What's more, many haven't reached retirement age yet and are still working and paying income tax /NICs - that's one hell of a lot of years' contributions that they have made so far!

@Mark19735 All governments raise taxes. Usually this is done before they spend the money raised.

Unfortunately this is NOT the case for most countries. The UK national debt is now approx 100% of GDP, and taxes raised are approaching 40% of GDP. In simple terms this means that the UK has already spent the next 2.5 years of taxes.

A common cliche used by people (especially the elderly) is "I've worked and paid tax and NI all my life" when the truth when they die is that on average they've paid £30,000 too little tax, and their children will have to pay it instead.

Sorry, but that's just not correct. The national debt is a balance; tax revenues belong in the P&L. The relevant figure for the national P&L accounts is the interest costs of servicing that debt, not the full balance. There is an important difference in what those accounts are for. The national debt is for exceptional items ... wars, crises, national infrastructure investment etc. It is a way of amortising costs over decades, in some cases even centuries - and that is absolutely fine by me. Only in-year running costs need to be paid from this year's tax receipts. (Depressingly, recent governments haven't even been able to do that, hence running a deficit, but it's still not as stark as you've suggested.)

The other gross misunderstanding about pension provision is that it should work like a saving scheme where the individual pensioner ought to pay in enough over their lifetime to cover their withdrawals in retirement. In fact, pensions are more of an insurance product, where the pensions for those lucky to live longer are paid from the contributions made by their peers who died much earlier than them. The problem with pensions isn't that some people live longer than their contributions provided for - that's always happened. The problem nowadays that nowhere near enough people are dying before they draw theirs. Back in the day, smoking, car accidents and general wear and tear from a physically harder working life took care of that.

I think a wealth tax is reasonable.