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

There's a reason why no UK government has done this. It wouldn't work

So you can't name an individual who left and caused collapse.

I mentioned Dyson. Are you aware Dyson got 2.2 million in public money last year for his farms. And he takes a similar sum every year. Here is 2018. 1.6 million.

James Dyson defends his £1.6m farm subsidy receipts - Farmers Weekly (fwi.co.uk)

Before that it was EU funds. And we can add all the other perks he got/gets too.

UC? Credits?

I mean we want food to be as cheap as possible right?

Every single non super rich person is on welfare ? And they are all sad and miserable ? Are only super rich happy ?

Let me check..... nope... I ain't super rich. I am not even rich. Wait a mo and I will hunt out a sackcloth to be miserable in.

Oh, and I get no welfare state benefits.

The subsidies are not for producing food. They are for owning the land.

Do you really think that people like Bezos, or Musk, or Gates, would be happy to stop working? They didn't get where they are without an astonishing need to 'win' and to prove themselves. There's no way they'd stop building and growing businesses. There's a reason why people who get to the top (in business at least) are often serial entrepreneurs, get head hunted, etc. It's because they have a unique drive that will not allow them to stop when they've made money we can't even begin to comprehend. How many of these people are still working in their seventies or later? It's because of an 'inner need' not because of money.

I don’t think that’s what’s happening. Rather some people can see why it wouldn’t work.

I was interested in where does it successfully and reading a few paragraphs on Switzerland landed on this

If a country like the UK tried to implement a Swiss-style wealth tax without adopting Switzerland’s zero capital gains policy, low VAT, and decentralised cantonal structure, the wealthy would likely leave rather than stay.

the welfare bill surpasses income tax revenue
. We are now borrowing money to pay benefits. That’s not right and down to government policy. We’ve had a government taxing workers more whilst giving benefit claimants more. How can the economy grow with such stupid policies. I know people on welfare and they seem well enough to sit outside their house talking to people on their street and having water fights pretty much every evening. Expelling more energy than they ever will at a desk. Yet the people generating the wealth and already paying more are being asked or expected to dig deeper

I agree with you, I said a sustainable funding model. But debt is 95% of GDP, interest payments are £110bn a year. But all people are interested in hearing is that the government is spending more money. Hence the reason they keep borrowing. The long term will be someone else’s problem, all politicians are interested in is getting elected.

Yeah. It’ll be an our kids. We do need to stop demanding all the time. But politicians need to be more honest but when they’re buying votes it’s hard to say we can’t do this but will spend x billion giving this away

I take it you realise that a lot of the lowest paid jobs, jobs that often don't earn enough to put bread on the table (and thus need to be subsidised), are pressured too? And (before you say 'they should get a better paid job then'), that frequently people have no choice but to do these jobs?

UC isn't a subsidy for the worker. It's a subsidy for employers and landlords to enable them to profit by paying wages too low to live on and charging rent too high to afford. I don't particularly want my taxes to enable that.

I also know some. The only reason they are there is because the money is so much more than they would get paid at home - it’s still a pittance. And they still have no rights and many dont even get a day off.

But you’re clearly ok with that. I’m not, and wouldn’t want to give up people rights just to pay less tax.

The welfare bill includes:

• housing benefits which are pushed ever higher by the increasing cost of land and the increasing cost of rent and housing. There are people working full time who needs housing benefit because housing is so expensive. Part of the reason land is so expensive is because it's a good way to store wealth. The rising cost of land and rents benefits the super rich while costing tax payers ever more in benefits
• other in work benefits for people whose wages are too low. This can really be seen as a subsidy for employers. It benefits small business owners who might be struggling otherwise and can't pay more. It also benefits large profitable companies and those that own them
• pensions which are going up as the population ages. Pension costs are also triple locked to rise with inflation so as inflation rises so too does the bill. Inflation is partly caused by, and benefits, those with a high concentration of wealth.

Government spending on welfare doesn't just benefit those on welfare. It also benefits the richest in the UK. And it's increased is partly caused by the growth of the super rich. You risk a very dangerous feedback loop where the poorest need more and more help, the rich get richer and the middle class are funnelling money to the richest while declining themselves. A wealth tax would mean some of the burden of the benefit bill could fall on the super rich rather than merely those that pay income tax (the working middle class).

How has taxing the rich ever helped. They move away.

So they are getting paid fine then? It's more than they would have made at home, they send lots back and can make ends meet?

I'd happily move to the region and are actively encouraging DC to look as well.

It's not taxing the rich. It's taxing the assets of the richest. This includes land which can't by definition move to Dubai. Either you pay the tax in that case, or sell it to avoid tax. Which helps control land prices and prevent them becoming the speculation vehicle they are now. That's IF the tax is enough to change behaviour. I suspect it wouldn't be. But any behaviour change re land tax would be a net benefit.
See point 1.

There are still a few ancestral homes I guess but they can be sold. Just because your ancestors were the meanest, greediest and most cut throat people way back, shouldn’t mean you have special dispensation to maintain the wealth grabbed back then. Aristocrats are no better than anyone else. Andrew (former prince) being a prime example.

Right but the arguments never seem to be “that won’t work” (as it happens I’m for it in principle but actually it would be impossible to administer). The arguments are predominately “they work hard and they deserve it”.

But again, we’re not talking about high “earners” - people earning £200,300,400k 1 these proposals are aimed at unearned wealth, rather than earned income. People like the Duke of Westminster, who is richer than a king (and I’m sure he does work hard but it’s not his daily work that’s got him that kind of money, let’s be honest). He’s sitting on millions and millions of pounds of wealth, and that is the sort of wealth they want to tax. I suspect he pays very little income tax in relation to his actual wealth, In practice, it’s probably virtually impossible, and so the people who are high earners bear the brunt of tax rises.

The upshot is that our finances are dire - there are people working full time unable to heat their houses in winter, prisoners released early because there simply aren’t the prison places, huge backlogs in the court system due to lack of judges and courtrooms, just today a woman was saying how her 2 week cancer referral is not going to be for 6 months because there aren’t the specialists available, tax thresholds frozen for years for hardworking people, triple locked pensions taking up something like 50% of the benefits budget. Some of this is mismanagement but a lot of problems we face require money - and a lot of it. If the choice is between the ultra wealthy, sitting on millions (if not billions) of unearned wealth, or the doctors and nurses and teachers and police officers facing yet another tax hike, I would much rather the option for a wealth tax was at least explored, even if not feasible.

Where has that ever worked? Over taxing someone never does. They will just sell up, they’ve already moved their money and businesses out the country and they’ll invest it all somewhere else. If someone makes a million pounds in this country they only receive £600,000 of it. Still a huge sum of money, but these people are business minded they don’t make many bad decisions and they see that money going into the coffers that offer no gp appointments, no housing, failings schools, no new infrastructure and decline in every aspect of public life. If paying taxes was an investment it would be a bad one. They have any reasonable excuse to say they don’t want to pay it. Because for services they don’t tend to use the pay a hefty sum for it and the people that do use it are being shafted by it.

Absolutely. They could get a second job or take in some ironing!

But let’s face it, if you have bought a £10 million home, you are highly likely to have other homes, shares, other assets. There had been a massive resource grab by the wealthiest. Thats what needs addressing or ordinary people won’t be able to afford houses or any kind of quality of life. There will be no social mobility. It will be Dickensian.

They'll just sell up?
They might sell the land they own if they own more than 20 million of it?
So land might stop increasing in value and with it house prices and rents?

The only reason people are wealthy is because other people are not. Most of these people are not self made. If they are, for example someone in the tech industry, they are selling a product that is overpriced and getting away with it. Or working hard to make sure our kids are addicted to tech and will be unemployed due to AI. Or they are a big employer and are not paying their staff enough. Maybe they invested in property successfully but somewhere there are tenants being taken advantage of. However they made their money, it was at someone else's expense and probably morally wrong on some level if we dig deep enough. We need rich people, they bring money into the economy. But they also take from it in other ways, they also often do untold damage to the environment by their lifestyles, damage that impacts poorer people. They are a part of society not above it and an additional extreme wealth tax is not punitive it's just equalising things a bit.

they see that money going into the coffers that offer no gp appointments, no housing, failings schools, no new infrastructure and decline in every aspect of public life.

Nobody earning six figures after tax would be affected by any of those things. They pay for private healthcare and education.