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

No there isn’t. People do an awful lot now to avoid paying IHT. And there’s a lot wrong with enormous amounts of money (and the resulting power) staying in the hands of the same families.

So how would that work then? I come from a poor background and have a small property in London worth let's say 500k that I've worked my arse off for years to pay off the mortgage. I also have a small pension pot that will give me about three thousand a year plus I have some savings for a rainy day. I'm self-employed so the savings are to cover if I'm really ill or something like that. I have an income of about £1500 a month which I can live off because I have no mortgage. I can't work more than I do because of my health. A wealth tax would mean I'd have to sell my home and probably move out of London. If I move out of London I lose my client base, my income, my support network etc. Can you honestly tell me I'm rich and can afford the tax? How the fuck am I meant to pay it?

You have very little grasp of economics or politics, OP.

I've just seen your suggested threshold is 1.5 million.

Do you live in the UK?

Have you examined wealth disparity between London and, frankly, anywhere else?

Do you have any idea what you're talking about??

People on this site talk about the perfection of Nordic model, not realising that taxes for waitresses in Norway are often 25% - whereas in the UK it is almost guaranteed that a waitress would pay almost no tax but definitely claim from the state.

So a wealth tax - sure - why not levy it on everyone with property (indifferent to whether you have a mortgage or not) - 1% flat rate.

Can you imagine? All the boomers with 600k properties, all the 80k houses on 90% mortgages.

It is just unworkable in a country where so many people are asset rich through housing but with nothing else.

Redistribution of wealth is not achieved through increased taxation unless you want to go down the socialist/communist route. Actual redistribution of wealth is achieved through increasing social mobility and having a skilled workforce. It requires an infrastructure of good education, employment opportunities and a stable/growing economy. According to interviews I heard today, young people are already pushing back on the proposal to increase Maths classes in school. We are dropping steeply in world rankings for Maths and other STE (M) subjects.

There's an almost perfect thread to tie into this. The one with the person wanting to buy HA property.

That is the nation's wealth disappearing into someone's back pocket.

Should that be included in your wealth tax? As it looks like wealth transfer to me....

Most people think of wealth taxes as for billionaires only. Reality is that wealth sits with anyone with a house without a mortgage. That can be housing association properties being sold off cheap too....

People on this site talk about the perfection of Nordic model, not realising that taxes for waitresses in Norway are often 25% - whereas in the UK it is almost guaranteed that a waitress would pay almost no tax but definitely claim from the state

When people talk about the Nordic model what they mean is they want Nordic level services with UK level taxation.

That would be so many people though.. and yes, plenty of pensioners sitting in a terraced house in London worth £1.5 million without enough cash to hand to pay a tax bill.

Even if you take away ability to pay issues, that’s very much middle England territory if we’re looking at people 50+.. they might have a pension worth 700k and a house worth 800k, most people wouldn’t see that as stonkingly rich. But even if you do - and that’s your opinion and one you are entitled to hold - how does it work? Anyone who suspects they have assets of close to £1.5m is obliged to get their house valued immediately? - by some kind of government agency or any old estate agent? Suddenly self-declare that they have all these assets?

What would happen if you just rounded it down? Are tax inspectors going to basically call up probably a million people based on rightmove?

1.5 Is actually quite low when you take in some southern property prices and pension pot valuations.

it’s not going to happen op and yes people will still inherit what their parents earned.

Seems unfair.

My parents would fall into this bracket. Only through ownership of their house now worth over 2 million.

They bought it for 350k 30 years ago.

op

how would you value pension pots? Final salary pensions? Would you revalue every property? What about cars? Art? Net of debt or gross?

how would people pay? Sell the asset? To who?

wealth tax is very hard to define and implement, and tbh is very much based on people thinking “it’s not fair that person has more than me”

Explain why unearned wealth is unfair?

In my mind, it would work upon sale of the house - I appreciate you can’t kick people out of their houses, nor would I want to. But if the house was sold - due to downsizing, death, a move, whatever - that’s when a certain % would be claimed as tax, on top of SDLT obviously. There are some interesting recommendations in the report I linked above about how it would affect ‘land wealthy’ individuals.

There have been rumours of replacing IHT with an annual wealth tax for ages but they never come to anything. Other countries do it 🤷🏻‍♀️

The scrapped 1.25% NI increase was meant to be Health & Social Care Levy to help the NHS, I don’t think the general public really realised that.

Envy is a deadly sin OP!

I am looking forward to reading that paper to see what is proposed. I follow the Gary's Economic youtube channel, campaigning for a wealth tax is his main focus. He did explain that we could tax assets, like land and property, so the rich wouldn't be able to duck it by moving abroad. He also said it would only be levied on people worth several million. Somone who owns a family home in London worth a milllion or two would not be the targetd.

My question is: aren't these assets already taxed? Most of these assets are in productive use, generating rents, which are taxed. I'm not sure how a wealth tax doesn't just tax the same income generator twice, through two separate mechanisms.

Ending the exmption for capital gains tax on peoples homes housing would seem a more straight-forward way to tax property more.

(A land-value tax sound like a good idea, but it's a very big concept, as properly implemented, it means abolish all other taxes. Literally no more income tax, NI or VAT, because LVT can apparently do it all.)

I wouldn’t want an annual wealth tax, it hasn’t worked in other countries and seems punitive.

So is greed

Worth pointing out that the linked proposal say they are talking about a one-off tax to pay for Covid, and they are actually against an ongoing wealth tax.

So the wealth tax in the link would not be a solution to an ongoing expense, such as the NHS annual budget.

What is needed, certainly for the nhs is to stop throwing money at it, and start reforming.

whilst pay needs sorting first so more staff are obtained, and those that currently work there get paid what they should there is far more that can be done

• Make all records electronic, and accessible to all hospitals, this would stops delays, save on paper costs and hours for the admin staff.

• Give results by letter if they are clear, I agreed to this but was then called into the hospital for a one minute consultation to be told they are clear! time could have been spent seeing other patients on the waiting list

• Procurement needs centralising and get better deals, not given to MOs buddies. It’s sad when hospitals can buy paracetamol cheaper at Lidl than from manufacturer
• Trusts need to work in the same way and together, difficulties in one area to be supported by other areas so there are not blatant differences
• Money must be recouped from tourists, and if that means credit card out when you arrive as you are not entitled to free healthcare then that’s what has to happen. It’s happens elsewhere including the EU
• fines to be levied for missed appointments
• Community nursing to be reintroduced, so those bed blocking get to go home, freeing up beds for those in need
• the ambulance service needs looking at, as does mental health provision. If you look at the TV programmes how many ambulances are sent out to repeat callers who have MH issues? They don’t need an ambulance, they need MH support, that needs to be some more available
• pharmacists need to be able to prescribe antibiotics for things such as infected bites , I went to one seeking help, then had to go to the go as an emergency as it was tracking so couldn’t wait, what a waste of a gp appointment
• give visa waivers to qualified staff from abroad who wish to work in the nhs
• ask staff about streamlining how things are done, they likely have lots of ideas

there is a lot more, and savings can be reinvested into the nhs , however whenever anything is tried unions kick off, and Jo Public screams about how dare they touch our wonderful nhs

See my post above. How is it greedy to work ones arse off to buy a home and have enough food to live?

It sounds like what you want is an end to PPR relief om property sales? That is very different to a wealth tax

Total assets of 1.5m is greedy?

Not greedy, but not wanting to pay a tax when you’re extremely well off is.