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

The forelock tugging remark was an individual response to a specific poster who had peppered the thread with insults to other posters, for their work, their intelligence and their ambition in their desire to defend billionaires.
This thread isn't about taxing high earners or the squeezed middle, VAT on private schools or NI contributions. Its about whether the 2% wealth tax is a good idea.
Because it doesn't matter which party is in government there's a great big hole in the budget that isn't going to be filled by getting the (unspecified number of largely anecdotal) lifestyle benefit claimants into work. Not while we have an aging population and disability increasing.

I think it’s reasonable but I assumed there would be a ton of moaning about it. There more wealthy, the louder!

@AnonyMumAuDHD - do you have wealth of 10 million plus? If not, your husbands high salary is irrelevant,

People earning high salaries are already paying a lot of tax. People with high wealth are, for the most part, not.

Many rich people are just lucky - right place, right time and right family. It's definitely not just a quid pro quo situation I.e. study hard, earn loads of money!

It being very unlikely to happen proves the point that made about the impact of very wealthy people on democracies.

Maybe the wealthy could pay for people on welfare by sponsoring them? In exchange the unemployed could do a bit of gardening, cleaning, driving, cooking, etc.

I don't see why the tax payer should have to pay for people to sit around on their arses.

Lots? And what jobs do these people have?

Quite often the do ’deals’ where they recover a negotiated sum - but not all of the tax owed. I think it is disgraceful. People on PAYE cannot wriggle out of tax obligations, neither should those with fancy accountants.

That is incredibly fucking offensive. I’ve met enough people in high paid jobs with no talent or work ethic but got a foot in the door because daddy is well connected. You think a newly qualified nurse teaching assistant is in a low skilled job?

If you think our politics are as corrupt as that then nothing can solve the problem, and the only solution is to leave.
Yes some politicians have funnelled money to their friends (and their own pension funds, actually much more common) but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the wealth gap we face, it's a drop in the ocean even when considering the cost of the benefits bill or the NHS individually- just saying everything is corrupt there is no point is defeatist, and incredibly lazy because it is only part of a much bigger story.

Well her dad has worked out how she can work her way out of inheritance tax when he dies as he can afford fancy lawyers and offshore accounts. So not all the tax she should be.

Respectfully this is a nonsense. How do you think the assets were acquired? From fresh air? All income is taxed unless it's in an ISA, SDLT/LBTT if a property is bought, CGT when an asset is sold, IHT when someone dies, VAT more often than not if you buy something, ADP on far flung flights, Petrol/Diesel and now electric tax if you own a car, Vehicle duty for every one other than the most efficient of vehicles for which you could buy a small property for the cost of those cars. People thinking rich people don't pay tax and shed loads of it are in cloud cuckoo land. Rich people may be able to afford to restructure assets to take advantage of dividend rates of tax but they have still had to pay corporation tax first before they get their dividends. Every millionaire I know has worked bloody hard to make their money - no one handed it to them. Eye watering amounts of tax have been paid so the answer is not to tax the rich more. They have already done their bit (and no I'm not a millionaire before anyone jumps on that band wagon) It's to stop haemorrhaging money at public level. We've got hospitals built not fit for purpose, tree lined avenues being built around cities when roads need filled in to prevent cars doing the dukes of hazard over them, some £156m spent on fixing a bridge for the M8 that has taken some 5 years to complete, still isn't finished and now there's talk of just demolishing the bloody thing. Better budgets, better plans are needed not taxing the rich. And think of it this way, if the rich leaves the country and by and large they are the ones creating businesses and jobs, where's the jobs for the rest of the people? That means higher benefits bills, higher unemployment, less money into the public purse and anyone in a job being taxed to the hilt yet again. It is fast getting to the stage in the UK that there is no reward for hard work of any description at what ever wealth level you are at.

The same can be said for many people in professional roles, even if they're not even higher rate tax payers.

Do you really think billionaires would want long term benefit claimants with no training as chefs, gardeners or chauffeurs to do these jobs when they can afford the best professionals?
And if they did, would they not just be depriving people who already do these things for a living of jobs?

I don't want them neither, and yet I have to pay for them out of my taxes.

Your post completely ignores the ways in which ultra high net worth individuals avoid tax. Most obviously, avoiding corporation tax by using shell companies to reduce the taxable profit of operating branches in high tax countries, or by using securities backed lines of credit to fund their lifestyles through debt rather than income.

As for VAT or ADP on “far flung flights” - we all pay that at the same rate, and it hurts us more than them as they have a lower marginal propensity to consume .

Ultimately they are paying proportionally less than the rest of us - so frankly I don’t think their tax feels as “eye watering” to them as it does for the rest of us!

Chin up. They'll probably be some billionaire paying for your retirement pension and your social care some time in the future, and they'll not want you either.

Except that wealth tends to accumulate.

So if it is a bad year and their net wealth decreases, will the taxpayer get a rebate? Who is going to value their wealth? It is UK-based wealth or global? Are we relying on self-declaration/valuation?

If it is a yearly 2% tax, I can see how they will dispose of UK-based assets and flee the UK. All the poorer for this country.

A wealth tax hits the wealthy in the way income tax does not. It affects their ability to pass wealth down to the next generation. It is personal.

Where did you get the “62%” of people who are too old or ill to work. In your mind does ill include ADHD for example? If they are too poorly paid to cover costs there should be incentives to retrain, not money just handed out. Nobody denies the most disabled of people who are genuinely in need, but people (apart from the claimants) are sick of this benefits culture. Yes of course we spend on other things but dos that make it better?

No I don’t want to pay more tax myself, but what is so challenging to grasp about the fact that there will be no more multi millionaires left in this country if you tax them any more?

Not goady, fact. You might find the fact goady.

My heart bleeds for the super rich and multimillionaires. Yikes they must be worried about their cornflakes!!

You haven't read my post correctly. I said the 62% of claimants who are too old to work or too poorly paid to manage on their wages. Referring to the percentage of benefit claimants who are either retired or in work.
I didn't include people claiming for disability in that, so ADHD is irrelevant. But since you ask, I believe it's not considered an illness, but in its most debilitating form can be a disability.
If all the poorly paid people were given incentives to train for better paid jobs, who would do the poorly paid jobs? Because if a carer retrains to become a nurse, someone else will need to replace her as the poorly paid carer won't they? So the problem simply shifts from one person to another. It doesn't prevent the need for UC to top up someone's wages.
It isn't remotely difficult to grasp that you believe that multi millionaires will leave the country if they are taxed. However this is your opinion, not a difficult to grasp fact. An opinion that is disputed, as PP on this thread have already explained.

Your are wrong. It is reported the Grosvenor Estate is worth £10bn and therefore on average it will be paying about £60m a year in inheritance tax and probably a bit less a year on income tax.

Someone knows their stuff.

Agricultural land values would be a lot less if it wasn't being used as a vehicle for wealthy people who aren't farmers to store their wealth without incurring IHT (a loophole now closed).

If the wealth tax is only applied on wealth above the threshold then family farms won't be paying anything, but James Dyson will.