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

So, OP, let’s just say we gave the nhs an extra £10 billon per day. Do you think we’d see any changes? No, me neither. Money is not the answer for the NHS, sadly.

Rich people won't pay it. They have plenty of alternative options.

Not enough people want to support the NHS, social care, police, prisons etc.to the extent that they want to pay more to fund them. They prefer to support them by banging pans. Most people aspire to be wealthy so are not happy to think that when they achieve wealth it will be taxed. People don't vote for governments who say they will increase taxation. Even Kier Starmer knows this.

We are a teeny land mass and a huge massive population.

We must get lot's of money per head for stuff compared to other countries that do things better?

I'e I don't think it's necessarily a funding issue.

The trouble is countries with attractive tax rates tend to do well

And making them pay more tax means they’ll have more money and a greater incentive to pay their employees more, will it?

Do you just really mean you’d like anyone with more than you to be taxed and have it taken off them? May as well just own it.

While letting them off does what? Rewards them for their immoral practices I'd say.

That's exactly what the OP means.

If your expensive London property is owned by a Jersey company and it is sold, you sell the company, not the property, no tax

For me, the main problem with a wealth tax is that it would hurt older people who own property but don't have much income - a pensioner for example whose house has gone up in value over the years to say £500k but they live on a pension.
Also, it's a great incentive to give wealth away - eg, pass inheritance on early etc to avoid paying the tax.
For me, the main thing is to make sure large corporations and the super rich are not able to keep avoiding tax through loopholes and expensive lawyers.

Well, if nothing else, what’s worse than having a zero hours contract and low levels of pay is having no contract at all and no pay.

I'm sure all the public sector works, doctors, nurses, teachers etc who are sat on very valuable defined benefit pension schemes, which on paper are worth an awful lot (far more than my defined contribution scheme) will be thrilled with that idea OP. A GP with a £1m pension pot (which is quite feasible) will be delighted to hand a % of it over in (even more) tax. Great idea. 🤔

a tax on an entity's holdings of assets. This includes the total value of personal assets, including cash, bank deposits, real estate, assets in insurance and pension plans, ownership of unincorporated businesses, financial securities, and personal trusts

cannot imagine how on earth this would be calculated or levied.

I have a friend who had a tax investigation opened against them - she didn’t owe a penny more than she’d paid but it still took months and months. She had a less complicated set up than many people and was completely honest but HMRC still took so many man hours looking into her.

I personally don’t think a wealth tax is fair but even if it were, the burden on the government and tax inspectors would be astronomical.

How would you account for regional variations? A 500k house where I live would be about six beds and on a decent plot. I count those people as rich.

But in the south east it could be a modest terraced house.

And what would be the set level of annual spending? If you don't meet it would your threshold for assets go up? I have reasonable savings because I live in a cheap house and spend very little money. Would I be taxed a second time on that money?

It's incredibly complex once you get into the detail

They had a go at this in Cyrpus, it didn't end well. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21814325

I had an old school friend living out there at the time, she'd just sold her house to move back to the UK and had the proceeds sitting in the bank. She lost a fortune.

So? Nothing wrong with inheritance. There's already a stupid amount of tax on it despite most of it stemming from previously taxed income.

But in the south east it could be a modest terraced house

Where I live it buys you a flat. Two bedroom if you're lucky.

Redistribution of wealth comes from employers paying a living wage, not from taxing those already paying 40% on income over £50k.

That article shows how much would be raised by a number of different thresholds.. some very low and some very high.

I’m interested in where you would set that threshold, OP?

I only briefly scanned that but that was the flaw that I could see - and of course 'rich' and 'wealthy' are highly subjective judgments until you get to the billionaire level. Probably even then.

What a load of tosh - we pay plenty enough tax as it is - tax your earnings, tax your pension, capital gains, inheritance - money needs managing better especially in the NHS. It was never envisaged that the model as it was set up would have to stretch to pay for eye-wateringly expensive treatments and drugs.

I suppose my threshold would be 1.5 million.

Wealth tax doesn’t factor in income

The biggest issue with a wealth tax is people having the ability to pay it. Say I have a million pound property in London, purchased 60 years ago, and am now on a low pension, how would I pay it? Do I need to sell my home just to pay it?