I think your post has pretty much nailed it. Even wealthy Middle East families have financial budgets.
The main problem with tax is that only a few people decide what is rightful. Just a handful of people decide whether to take £800 billion or £1tn from 68,000,000 million other people. We know that collectively we have to fund critical things like firefighters, emergency medical care and defence, but beyond that there is a whole layer of mission creep that individuals in or with ties to government promote. A bigger Big State equals a bigger trough and there is little difference between Eton cronyism and Socialist rackets. They have their own similar agendas, just different forms of capitalism.
There is nothing moral in taxation per se and the Courts have said this, time and time again. The only morality comes in its reciprocity. One could argue that if a person has built substantial wealth in property, it is because the social, legal and economic factors the state has fostered have enabled such wealth in the first place, then it is proportionate to pay that back on death through taxes. But using those factors in the first place, to create wealth is what the state needs. It cannot do it alone and the state needs entrepreneurs.
What genuinely surprises me is Starmer's modus operandi since coming to power. The PR and impetus beforehand was looking good. Not quite 1997 today, but that would have been a hard act to follow. Strip that away and we were assured earlier this year there was some messiah with the power to make change.
Yet here we are and there is an arrogance in the air that was not around then. Blair was about allowing people to reach their potential and making their own riches, whether money or otherwise. Then, it was all about unfettered opportunity, giving working class and poorer people the same opportunity as those who were already entitled.
But from Starmer it's not really about empowerment. It is quite the opposite. It is about making an even bigger state and giving collective power to the unions and central government.
And more than anything, false promises. If the £3 trillion public debt is to be reduced, or at least £2 trillion of it to bring it down to the £1 trillion left by Labour in 2010, how are they to do this? We will shortly find out, but so far we have been told no cuts in spending. That only leaves taxation, but there will be no increases to income tax, national insurance, VAT or corporation tax according to Rachel Reeves. And crucially there will be no new wealth tax.
Well, let's consider that for a moment. The central government taxes that are not going up contribute 86% of Treasury receipts. Take those out and the next one on the list is fuel duty which raised last year about £15 billion. Attack that and inflation goes up and jobs are lost. SDLT raised £11 billion, but if you increase that the price of houses goes up and the market collapses and 300,000 houses a year do not get built. Local government is off balance sheet, but the same rule applies. Increase council tax and it sucks money from other spending.
No more borrowing. No cuts in spending. No increases to the taxes that make the most difference. It is not clear how the £22 billion annual black is going to be fixed. Even if it was, that £22 billion, when it is found, just about keeps track with inflation on last years total tax receipts.
Starmer and Reeves are not going to do this alone. They need the support of business to grow the UK and reduce debt. But so far the message has not just been poor or unclear. It has been diabolical. It has been arrogant. Why? They have won the election. Now it should be about winning friends and influencing people.
It is not the fear of taxes that is, and will continue, to export wealth and ability overseas. It is the arrogance, lack of engagement and lack of confidence that makes people cut and run. Nobody wants to be in a race to the bottom. Then everyone loses.