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

How do you know they worked hard?
Huge assumption!

It can be infuriating when those who pay most to the country are drained of money at every turn yet you get people who are part of a chain of generational benefit recipients just take take take. And i say that as the daughter/granddaughter/wider family of those who saw beneifts as a way of life.

Yes, there will always be anomalous pockets of society like this, unfortunately. That isn't indicative of any wider point about society in general the way pp implied, though.

You cannot simply lie your way into the amount of disability benefit this person would need to be claiming. The bar for PIP at these rates is exceptionally high. And even then, the amount wouldn't reach your quoted figure.
The only possible explanation I have for the huge discrepancy between what you report seeing and the facts I'm aware of from my knowledge of welfare benefits law, is that he is receiving an overpayment due to official error, or has lied that he has dependents.
The salient point bring, if correct its highly exceptional and will not be being replicated the length and breath of the country as you imply.

But what you are both missing is that people earning 50,000 or 100,000 or 500,000 through really well paid jobs aren't the target for wealth tax. It's people who own more than 10 million. Not all business owners are rich. But a business owner whose share of the business is over 10 million probably IS rich. Even if they aren't paying themselves any salary from running said business, they will be retrieving a share of the profits which, if it's say 5% of an 11,000,000 business is about 550,000 pounds per annum. Which is taxed but at a much lower rate than a salary of the same amount would be. So they absolutely can afford to pay an extra 20,000 out of it.

This isn't about the middle classes or even people on higher incomes than the norm. Squabbling over whether public sector workers or private sector workers earn more or work harder is missing the point.

Job stress? What kind of companies are these graduates applying to?

Middle earners are burnt. High earners, I'm afraid, are not proportionately taxed and the rich don't necessarily pay tax through paye.

I am pro a tax in the £10m plus club and so are many of the people in that group.

Exactly. It’s the wealthy. Near me there are so many second (or more) home owners. It leaves the place empty in winter and pushes house prices up so locals can’t afford to stay.

When you have a lot of money there is a point where you can only really buy more assets. They then make you more money. You then buy more assets. It drives house prices up. Often the house are owned by a company and often registered overseas etc to avoid taxes.

The problem and the solution lies in the super wealthy (who aren’t the highest tax payers).

I think rwo percent is small fish to some of the rich and super rch. Blocking loopholes and dodges and massive tax evasion would be more to the ponit .

I agree. That was my point.

Well said. I have worked in financial services for 20 years and it amazes me how many people don’t realise it adds little to no value, or the tax loopholes used.

thing is, the hedge funder/PE/VC types own the media so misinform people. Look at GB news, owned by a tax dodging hedge fund manager.

Bad upbringings maybe?

Have you really missed all this?

The top wealthiest are not the highest tax payers. They take take take. Take peoples hard work and pay them very little and work them to an early grave. Or buy up assets meaning ordinary people can’t own their own home.

There will of course be some people that defraud the benefits system but the reasons for poverty and low employment are very complex.

And we are all only a few major life events away from needing benefits.

People can donate to targeted efforts in their local area to help the poor in their community. We came from India and just worked hard, we had less than what the British poor have today.

A lot of people who are worth 10 million plus won’t have worked particularly hard (a lot is family money). It’s unlikely they are on a PAYE & are paying the equivalent tax.

There’s an easy solution to this. Don’t apply for the state pension. They don’t just send it to you. If you apply for it you’re part of the problem.

Well it can’t be that hard, because he absolutely receives it, month in, month out. And he’s not some mastermind, in any way. Perhaps I do know the sole high level benefit fraud claimant in the country, but I highly doubt it.

Well maybe I won’t. I’m still 30 years off yet, so we will see. I might have given away all my assets by then and end up needing it! (i’m being facetious, sorry).

But the point I want to emphasise is that individuals don’t make much difference. Your wealthy mate who donates £5m a year to the government is a drop in the ocean. Your scrounger cousin who claims £5k a month in benefits is a drop in the ocean. What we need is policy change - we need a better benefits system that ensures benefits go to those who need it, and we need a wealth tax to ensure that people who can afford to support others, have no choice but to do so.

Unless you are part of the Hinuja family and taking some time out from your billionaire lifestyle I highly doubt that, as well of as you are, your family are the sort of family targeted by a wealth tax?. You would need to have over 10 million. It's not about people who worked very hard and have a really good life they earned in the upper middle class. That might feel "rich" and is compared with most of the population. But it's not "rich-rich" which is who the people talking about the wealth tax want to tax. If you are on a high six figure salary and live in a house worth 4 million you have done very well. But you still have more in common with a homeless person on disability benefits than the people targeted by this tax.

If you genuinely personally own well over 10 million in assets then you are a fool for wasting your time posting on Mumsnet. If I had that much I'd be windsurfing on a beach somewhere.

Lots of lower paid people are in the same position without the big pay packets

Some of those we are talking about (£10m plus) will be the highest tax payers. Just as some people on benefits will be claiming fraudulently. And it must be galling for those who have worked hard to get where they are to see those who scrounge (the ones fraudulently claiming or just a generational benefit recipient) get everything thrown at them. Not as galling as it must be for those who are middle earners though.

Plus greed.

What happened when you reported him?

I wouldn't be so sure he'll get away with the fraud indefinitely.

But either way, again, this is an anecdotal example. There are always going to be people like this. It doesn't constitute an argument that benefit fraud is a widespread phenomenon.