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

I pay a third of my salary on tax. People with huge assets largely escape tax and are able to accumulate more wealth through investing. A 2% tax is tiny proportionally.

The key problem is static inherited wealth which just sits in either an asset or trust fund, it is not allowing any redistribution.

I would welcome a different method than taxation but nobody has come up with that method yet.

2% on wealth of over 10 million is not unfair, those estates are nearly all inherited or based on screwing the little guy. Nobody talks about how in work benefits are there because employers don't pay enough. It is the employers who are the scroungers, they should pay a reasonable wage.

This isn’t high earners. This is people who have hoovered up all the assets and built passive incomes on the back of that and are set to just accrue more and more.

We need a work force. Bezos needs his warehouse workers,
manufacturers and delivery drivers. Those people often work themselves to ill health and early death. There is no tax to be found there.

So if we don’t do an extra wealth tax on the super rich, then the middle classes will have to pay. We then won’t spend our money and the economy will suffer.

Or do we want to go back ti Dickensian Brittain?

As someone who gets paid a reasonable amount of money to think about taxes on UHNW entrepreneurs for most of my waking hours, I can’t believe an exit charge would hamper growth.

I actually think it’s too hard to implement without consultation, and by consulting you would create an exodus which would impact growth (as people would accelerate leaving to avoid it) - but just introducing an exit charge would certainly increase tax take, and the behaviour it’s most likely to drive would be making people stay in the UK who might otherwise leave.

It wouldn’t be anywhere near as detrimental as a wealth tax though (which to be done properly would need similar consultation and would again create an exodus, probably a much bigger one).

Why is it goady? I’m not uber rich but why should someone who is pay for people who chose benefits as a lifestyle choice? And who exactly’s going to pick up the bill when they inevitably leave? When there’s no money for the nhs? Rather bury your head in the sand?

A trust fund effectively pays a 0.6% wealth tax every year, and an inheritance attracts a 40% tax charge on death. It’s hardly untaxed wealth.

Food now represents the same proportion of household income that it represented in the 1980s at 11.3% which is around a third of what it was in the 1960s (33%).

Other issues are wage stagnation, supported by importing cheap labour, and cost of housing again worsened by immigration.

I do. Less than 40% of UC claimants are in any kind of work. Of those, less than 5% work 30 hours a week or more. So, HOW Is this an issue with employers not paying enough, rather than claimants not working enough hours?
And do you have any statistics to support your claim that “nearly all estates of £10m+ are inherited or based on screwing the little guy”?

And all the well paid software engineers?

And do you have any statistics to support your claim that “nearly all estates of £10m+ are inherited or based on screwing the little guy”?

As I mentioned earlier, only three of the top 50 wealthiest people in the uk have inherited the wealth from their Uk families.

Most of UK billionaires are self made.

Cost of housing isn’t mostly impacted by immigration. It’s a lot down to the wealthy buying up assets. That’s why wealth
needs taxing. Not just income.

What about them?

Because is its not fair being poor and its not fair being the squeezed middle. The only difference is the ultra rich can afford to share some wealth. 2% of from the poorest is the difference between food and heat, 2% from the richest will barely be noticed but will make a difference in everyone's lives.

Or made on the backs of the people who worked for them.

Here you go. This is why you are BU OP.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=FvaxRuMGv38&ra=m

There’s a good article in today’s Times which suggests that to achieve sufficient revenue you need to tax the moderately wealthy who can’t up sticks rather than the super wealthy who will leave. So that means targeting any household with assets over 1m ( that’s pension funds, any investments, cash, house value , everything).

If that was the threshold then one in seven in the U.K. would be caught. In the U.K., more people than in most European countries have their money in houses / real estate. Unfortunately it’s not liquid cash which means potential hardship in meeting the tax bill and potential unpredictable effects on the domestic housing market.

Again, do you have any data or statistics for that claim? If that is happening, it’s shit, but the statistics I’ve read don’t suggest that it is?

They have an income and can feed their families thank you Bezos

And who paid their wages? Who setup the business and the capital and the environment they operate in so their labour has actual meaning and value?

We are talking about £10M!
Is being worth £11M going to improve anything?
Think it through…

Is it that easy? Many businesses fail and the risk is taken by those who try.

Lots of the super wealthy won’t leave. Kids will be settled in schools. Friends will be local. Wider family etc. some might but as the most wealthy aren’t currently the highest tax payers we might not notice much difference. Say half of them leave - that’s still 2% tax on the huge wealth owned by 50% of the richest few %.

I’m not sure you’re right about that. Hope so.

Super wealthy people can change their kids to international schools or limit time in the country.