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 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.
This seems a bit political for a charity to be getting involved in. It doesn't sit right with me.

Let's see, where could the mega rich decamp to in order to escape any sort of wealth tax here? What are the criteria for settling there, and what is QOL like, weather, politics, language, schools, friends, family, the ddog, oh god help them, it's a tough decision to move away because of a tax increase, but them's the breaks.

However, remember that the mega rich have already domiciled themselves in tax havens, therefore many of those with a foothold here are not resident for tax or domiciled here either, so their taxes on foreign earnings are decided by their country of residence/domicile. OK they would have to pay CGT on disposals here, and Inheritance Tax and maybe some other stuff I can't think of right now, but Income Tax, not unless any of their earnings are remitted here or earned here. I think! Someone with more tax knowledge than me might confirm or deny.

Anyway, my point is that the theory that all the rich will leave if a super tax is introduced is not true.

You’re job is surely most important as you’re raising your children mainly on your own?

As I said up thread, nothing!

Its entirely in keeping with their charitable aim and mission statement which is to fight inequality to alleviate poverty and injustice.
They are quite transparent that one of their aims is to challenge concentration of wealth and power that keeps people in poverty.
Its also the norm for charities to be political because they usually have an aim to address the causes of the issue they provide crisis support for. For example, Womens aid may call for stronger legislation to protect women and girls from male violence.

I mean, lobbying the government to reduce wealth inequality is literally what Oxfam does. It’s one of their three main pillars.

Do people ignore there was a capital flight from France?

Why would a business not be earning that much? It's possible if you bought say 10 million worth of machinery and land but then the business isn't profitable at all for it not to be bringing in a profit. I would argue the business isn't actually worth 10 million. It's worth whatever the land is worth and the scrap value of the machinery. Basically someone lost 10 million in a failed business. It happens and isn't a tax issue.

If the business itself is valued at 10 million or more then what's making it valuable? It's earning potential. Aka the profits (not just revenue) its making. To be worth that much it would be making a certain amount of profits.

There are two exceptions to this:

1. Farms often sit on large amounts of assets (land) and don't always pull in huge profits. A farm on 10 million pounds worth of land is a large farm and likely still bringing in a decent amount of income**. In the case where it is struggling and it's necessary because it grows food exceptions could be made. We already subsidise farms by a lot so this would be the same
2. Baffling businesses like AI companies that are somehow valued at hundreds of millions of even billions of dollars despite not actually making any profit. Those companies are a problem, wealth tax on the owners is the least of it.

**Not all farmers are struggling sheep farmers.

The IMF have aleary stated we are at (or near) peak tax.
This means that every time the Gov increase taxes, they actually get less tax, and so the cycle goes on.
They do not take into account changes in people's behaviour.
I'm not that rich, so I do not know whether they will get anywhere near that, but I suspect, it will have to be increased to more than that after a while.

Land Value Tax would be better. Land can’t go to Dubai.

Do you think a millionaire banker works harder than a nurse? Do you think the banker deserves many multiples of the salary and many multiples of the wealth? Who of the 2 is of more benefit to society?

Things have to be paid for. Education, hospitals, policing, fire service, infrastructure. Isn’t it fairer that the wealthy pay more? They can afford more.

Some people live to make money.

Some people live to a have a nice life and do jobs which will hopefully improve the lives of people less fortunate than they are.

The former are greedy, pretty thick and usually (ultimately) lonely.

The latter are good, intelligent people who know that money isn’t the measure of a person but who are surrounded by love until the day they die.

Which group do you belong in?

There may well be some sort of legal reason why a tax is considered a more appropriate system to collect it

If you mean the voluntary contributions, @Monty36, they'll consider tax "more appropriate" because they know perfectly well the 80% said to be more than willing to pay more tax is a load of cock. After all if so many were putting their money where their mouths are there'd be no need to levy further tax ... except of course that governments' appetite for more money to waste is limitless

And as already mentioned, surveys can be made to "prove" anything:

People don’t need to be given the choice about leaving another for country to be taxed less. Just like america, we can tax them based on being a citizen/ living here for 10 years or whatever criteria we choose. They can move, but still be taxed. Just like Americans always pay their taxes to America.

Why should people earning £40k be taxed 20% or people earning £75k be taxed 40% when people earning/ worth £100 million (it’s not £10m, they’re floating £100m) not be taxed at all??

it’s ludicrous we have a problem with this. It’s ludicrous we actually care to have this argument.

I think the banker does deserve the salary he gets paid if they complete their work legally and follow the rules and guidance set out by the FCA.

Nurses start on £31k in the UK. That's a perfectly reasonable and decent starting salary. They'd be paid more if we didn't have an NHS and actually had a competing marketing.

Vibes don't pay the bills

Why be a nurse if you think the pay is crap go back to uni and study something with a higher earning ing potential

Missed all what?

If you count 'I need to take this job or my family will starve/house will get repossessed', as a choice, then yeah, sure... 🙄

Are you an employer by any chance?

And how would the poor access healthcare then? Not that you care about the poor, you've made that blindingly obvious already.

What did you do to “work hard”. Genuinely. Because I know eg, cleaners who have worked hard all their lives doing split shifts, but are still skint.

Because who decides what a business is worth? Currently in the UK business valuation is done on an industry multiplier of profits. But that “worth” isn’t realised until the business is sold. So, on paper it might make £1m a year EBITDA with a multiplier of 10, and so be “worth” £10m, but in practice, has limited available cash flow to pay an additional tax?

Maybe take the leap and do medicine

What utterly judgemental bullshit. You do realise this is absolutely no better than stating that “the poor” are “thick and lazy”???

I'm not one of the 'chronic low earners' you clearly despise - I'm doing pretty well in life, but that hasn't always been the case - but the suggestion that the poor should have to rely on charity is reprehensible. Employers should pay their staff enough to live on, that should be a basic cornerstone of any decent society.

But then, having read other posts of yours on this thread, you sound like the very definition of a 'pull the ladder up behind you' type. Views such as you've expressed are a big part of what's wrong with our society imo.