AIBU to think a 2% wealth tax on the rich is unfair?

[Mrspepperpotpot]

i just saw an article and petition from oxfam saying if we taxed the ‘super rich’ 2% it would solve a lot of problems. They were suggesting 2% on anyone worth 10 million. Everyone in the comments agreed

I just don’t understand this mentality. High earners are hit at every turn. They usually use private health and private schools, pay the most tax, get hit with tax on savings, IHT, land tax, pensions etc etc Why on earth should people earn money to be taxed on it, to then be taxed on it again and again.

Why do people begrudge others having money when they’ve worked extremely hard to get it? Why isn’t there uproar about benefits instead?

I know this will never actually happen but the amount of people who seem to want it to is astonishing

Is it a one off tax? A recurring one? Is it based on income? On assets?
No @REDB99- My friends parents bought a house for £125,000 in the 1970s. It’s worth £8m now. They also have a second home bought about £50k in the 1960s. Worth close to £1m now. With other investments they could get to £10m. But they don’t have £200k just sitting there in cash to make a pay out! When they die (likely soon as very elderly) the government will get millions from their estate. The kids will have to sell the main house to pay it.
My DH was a high earner. He said he’d be willing for the top tax bracket to be 50%. He paid his taxes every year and with his children in private school and private health insurance was not getting some of the more obvious benefits from taxation. But he was acutely aware that his job (lawyer) was very well paid and so was fine with paying.
I think closing the loopholes that allows big corporations to pay much reduced taxes would be a better way of raising money, though that is complicated as it would require international tax agreements. Digital Services Tax would also be something to consider.

Increasethe personal allowance to £24k, transferable between spouses, and tax everything else at a flat rate of 20%.

It's precisely because we have a housing crisis and a CoL crisis that we are turning to conversations about wealth tax. It wasn't high on people's agenda during the Blair government when everyone felt wealthier.

The point is that we will never have true wealth equality - even communism doesn't deliver that. But I would argue that poor government decision making has led to higher wealth inequality. Redistributing that wealth might feel like the answer but it doesn't address poor governments.

I can honestly say that I am not "jealous" of people who put money before their family.

They should diversify and retrain just like Thatcher told the miners to do in the early 1980s. No excuses, diversify or retrain. Or sell up and enjoy cashing in their paper wealth for cash in the bank. They’ve definitely got options.

So you are in favour of increasing the cost of food at the supermarket for those already struggling with their weekly bills?

Yes, but they’ll have 10 million in the bank!

We cannot afford to tax the wealthiest in our society and burden them with other people's poor decision making and insufficient planning. I've seem that argument that you can't always anticipate how life turns out but you can be prepared to take responsibility if something unexpected or difficult happens and be resilient at whatever life throws at you.

As a country were are pretty much broke we don't need more taxes, we need to fix what is wrong.

We are now a service based economy when we should be looking at become much more self sufficient, we shouldn't have got rid of all our industry and agriculture. It might be cheaper to buy from China but it doesn't help us in the long term.

We need to cut welfare spending, people need to plan ahead and work out what they can afford before embarking on things.

If I were in charge I would start by stop investing in SEN, its a total waste as not many of those kids will become our high achieving economically active citizens of tomorrow, and become a society that favours the able and creates opportunities for them. It's harsh but hasn't life always been about survival of the fittest.

The NHS though a noble idea is not a practical reality and we need someone brave enough to pull the plug on it.

If we stopped this benefits culture, I bet the immigration figures would drop overnight and we could start building up ourselves into a powerful self sufficient nation again

Mainly the South-East, but scattered around even in remoter places.

That wan't the point. We really do not want Big plc owning all our farmland. It would be a disaster in so many ways.

*illegal immigration obviously we would welcome talented people who bring in skills and entrepreneurship

They don’t even have 200K in cash, they are stupid then. How would they cope with an unexpected bill or repair? I have 100K in the bank and I’m not a millionaire. Utter morons running companies worth 10 million or more if they don’t ensure one emergency bill wouldn’t result in job losses etc. so what if they don’t pay bonuses? Plenty of employees don’t get a bonus.

Morals don’t pay the bills though do they?

And I would implement tax breaks for farmers scrap iht

No we do not have equality of opportunity, ability or luck.

Will Andy B pay any of the taxes he suggests. I understand he is a very wealthy man not the working class hero image he is bandying about.

The government should be prioritising and protecting food production over pretty much anything else. We are already a long way away from self-sustainability and increasing our reliance on imports puts us in a more and more vulnerable situation - one where the poor would be the hardest hit.

i am all for taxing any profits farmers get from selling their land, but many work for less than minimum wage producing food on it. The value of land is driven by the fact it offered tax shelter or for house development neither is the fault of farmers trying to grow food.

Of course the housing crisis is hugely impact by immigration - something successive governments have failed to tackle.

The SE isn’t the UK

No one's talking about reducing these people to penury and I think although it's a relatively crude approach, wealth equality is becoming so unbalanced that we have to redistribute either it and/or the tax burden, or else things are just not economically sustainable

I think some PP think food magically appears in supermarkets.

I think it should be increased to 5%.

You want to trash the economy? Why?

Sounds like sour grapes to me

I agree it’s wrong. It should be higher than that.

Agree. When I say disabled I mean physical disabilities. And some EXTREME mental health disabilities.