To wonder if all those gleeful about PIP cuts are going to welcome people with serious mental health conditions as colleagues and employees?

[Somethingthecatdraggedin7]

Given the amount of ableisism I see on MN I think the likelihood of people welcoming people with serious mental health conditions into their workplace is pretty low.
And yes, these people will very likely now be forced to try to work even though their condition makes it impossible. We are not just talking about some lazy twenty year old who expects to sit at home gaming due to his “anxiety” as many people seem to believe is the case. It will be people with significant impairments to social functioning.
Even if they get support to apply for jobs, and even if they then get the position (doubtful) how accommodating will colleagues or customers be if the person seems a bit odd, or gets adjustments workmates deem unfair?
This is going to be a total shit show.

It’s possible to be concerned about more than one thing at a time

Ok look, this is pretty simple. There are two types of people on disability benefits. If you are talking about people who don't really need them then you are talking about benefit fraud. As we've already discussed, tackling this would not raise much money. We may wish to tackle it anyway - there are reasons for governments to do things other than raising funds - but it won't amount to much in terms of £££

If you are talking about people who do really need them, then removing their benefits would raise a little more, but much less than the amount lost to uncollected taxes, and would be morally abhorrent. You say you aren't talking about the latter, so I'd throw the question back and ask: what are you proposing?

And to reiterate, I think we should raise revenue by tackling things like tax avoidance and evasion, and implementing a fairer and more effective progressive tax policy. This is the third time I've said it now; I won't do it a fourth time as it's pretty clear you don't want to engage.

What's your top priority @Julen7 ?

I know of two people personally that have almost zero wrong with them and they get PIP. They cite all sorts of mental health issues and anxiety but can then do huge festivals and other events at the drop of a hat, despite this presenting the exact sort of triggers they claim for. Yet, I personally rather a small number of disingenuous CF claim the benefit then many others being cut off and suffer.

Oh I have concerns that probably wouldn’t have even entered your head

Oh @Julen7 you're so mysterious. What a tease.

Well I’m hardly going to tell you and get an aggressive counter argument for my trouble am I?

You can become her appointee and then she won't have to deal with it again. I would do this then reapply, and be prepared to appeal

I believe UBI is the answer to this going forwards. It's coming, and not fast enough imo.

The richest are leaving these shores, so what now?

Well according to previous posters we should be more like France...so let's have an exit tax!

(Actually we wouldn't have to copy France for this; we could copy the US, Canada, China, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Australia, Switzerland , Netherlands...)

The problem with this 'tax the rich" rhetoric is that people just don't understand how little wealth you need to be considered 'rich'.

For example,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce3qnyr7y94t?page=2

"The wealthiest Americans own the most stock – in fact, the Federal Reserve estimates that about 90% of the markets' trillions are owned by the top 10% wealthiest Americans"

Wow! Why don't we just tax that top 10% who own everything?

"who as of 2022 had typical holdings worth more than $600,000 (£471,230)."

£470k really isn't that much money in terms of pension. If you took 4% a year (very risky) you'd have less than £20k a year to live on.

and that's America, which is a much richer country than the UK...

There is no magic pot of rich people's money waiting to be tapped for your benefits. It's your parent's and friend's pension savings or family homes.

Most of the wealth tax proposals I've seen relate to estates of >£10m

You’ve missed the bigger picture - and the point - not a shock. I’m also not your mate.

No-one said that. Pick any other country/city in the world (apart from Moscow in Russia) who haven’t lost as many millionaires as us in the past year. Pick any other country. I’ll wait. Reading comprehension is really lacking in this response to what I’ve said.

If you have a point to make then make it. Go on I dare you.

You are being very aggressive @CentralLimit.
I for one won't engage with a poster who can't debate sensibly.

Well, as we're talking about comprehension, this is what I wrote in my previous post. Would you like to engage with any of it?

"The data about millionaires leaving is not reliable high-quality research - it's produced by asset management groups that are explicitly biased, in that they are employed to represent the interests of the wealthy. The proportion of millionaires leaving is actually small, because there are a lot of them to start with. Analysis of why they are leaving suggests it has a lot to do with Brexit and the failure of the UK to invest in the tech sector. Then there's also the weather - quite a lot of pensioners are now millionaires and leave to retire in the sunshine. Lol at the idea of France as a low tax haven though..."

Having said all that, and to answer your question, those asset management companies you all love to cite actually seem to be claiming that China lost more millionaires than the UK. Not hugely surprising given population sizes.

And this reflects that these figures aren't particularly useful. Indeed, the fact that we score highly on this metric primarily reflects that we have lots of millionaires in the UK - about 2.8 million of them, fourth in the world. Thus, when we lose a few of them, the figures look high. But the loss last year only amounts to around 0.3% of what we have, and that was probably not due to taxation (or else France would be seeing similar).

The wealthy and their henchmen can jump up and down and get all hyperbolic about it, but there's very little evidence that a millionaire exodus is happening, much less that it's caused by too much tax.

I'm sorry if you're upset. Evidence can be so triggering.

Your interpretation of the evidence I think you'll find.
I'm not triggered. But anyway I am out so you can say I am.

And how many estates are worth that much and how are they going to liquidate an annual percentage to pay your wealth tax? You can't sell 2% of your Kensington townhouse to raise £20k

How much do you honestly think this would raise?

If 2% of your wealth was 20k you'd be well under that threshold.

You raise an interesting question though, namely how exactly to do progressive wealth taxation. There are arguments that changes to capital gains would be more efficient than straightforward taxes on wealth, precisely because of the liquidity issues you raise. And I'm completely open to that, if the numbers pan out. Whatever works.

I'd also point out that you've got to take into account the downstream benefits of reducing inequality over and above the initial funds raised by any tax. Political stability, strengthening of meritocracy, reduction in inflation, more wage growth, less crime, cheaper assets (especially houses) for the next generation, etc etc. Plus as inequality reduces, fewer people use complicated tax avoidance schemes. All of these have important economic benefits that don't necessarily show up in the initial yield, and could make a wealth tax worth it even if initial yields were modest.

Thanks for raising the question; I wish there was more debate on here about these details instead of the same stale old stuff about benefits. I hope that others chip in.

I'm not sure where to start with this!
I don't think it's envy in most cases. The vast majority of us don't desire super wealth. We just want a decent quality of life. So we don't envy the billionaires. We just want them to pay their share, not hoard wealth and assets, making acceptable living standards much harder to attain for the rest of us.
Almost all billionaires have gained their wealth either through inheritance or exploitation or both. Their passive income alone is eye-watering. The suggestion that they worked for it, so deserve it, is so offensive, as cleaners work extremely hard, shop assistants, hospital porters etc. Yet, they earn little more than minimum wage, if they're fortunate enough to even get full-time hours.
The filthy rich billionaires, who don't pay their share, are the real scroungers, not people with disabilities or mental illness claiming the minimal support they need to keep body and soul together.
Something has gone very wrong with Britain's moral compass, if people are defending the mega rich and attacking impoverished mentally ill people 😔

There is nothing wrong with my moral compass thanks, I just have a different opinion to you.
You see I think it's pretty offensive to describe people who happen to be wealthy as scroungers but there you go

Are you ok?