“Tax the wealthy” (RR budget) what does this even mean?

[gggddjkki]

I don’t remember anxiously waiting for budgets like we have the last few years earlier on in my adulthood. But when you read statements like this (as I have seen in the headlines today) what do you interpret it to mean? What does taxing the wealthy look like to you? Taxing higher earners more? From what point? Higher taxes on industry?

Yeh £500k is a bad idea. There are many cash strapped and with regular jobs in SE in a house like that.

I’ve read stuff on this that suggests if you did this for everyone including the wealthy, it would raise far more than the current system does because it would limit people trying to avoid IHT with elaborate wealth planning schemes.

But as with my earlier post about corporation tax, Labour would rather chew off their own feet than reduce tax rates, even if it did raise more money for the exchequer. They are morons.

Those who are hoarding all of the wealth are the ones who have the greatest ability shield that wealth from the tax authorities.
I can't see any way around that problem ☹️

I think this is precisely why gambling hasn’t been taxed up till now, it’s too complicated when there are losses. But most people don’t realise that, they just see gambling as an obvious thing to tax without being aware of the implications

They taxed education quickly enough.
Education is more worthy of being taxed than gambing it seems. Most likely more damaging to health and mental health.

Please link me to a study that shows immigration has increased per capita GDP in the UK. Not total GDP, per capita GDP.

“Trickle down economics” never works anywhere.

Businesses may well create jobs, but what jobs are they? Are they the low paid, zero hours jobs that mean people have to claim benefits to be able to afford to live? Or do they pay a proper living wage?

Businesses also do many things which means the wealth gap gets wider and wider. Is that what we want? A company like Amazon, aggressively selling largely cheap tat made for a pittance by people who live in squalor, adding more crap to our landfill, so that the guy at the top can fly off to space on his jollies.

The answer isn’t just to give tax breaks to businesses to come in a pillage our economy. It is to have a proper solid plan for investing in small and medium businesses already here in the U.K. to help them succeed. I’d rather taxpayers money was spent on giving that small business lower business rates so they can grow to become a responsible contributor than give more money to a large multinational who builds a factory on greenfield spaces so they can simply make more profit.

Well yes, but it’s not the same thing. And I am no fan of VAT on private schools, I am paying two sets of school fees!

I think morally it is

Agree. We’ve already seen them shoot themselves in the foot with the NI rise, resulting in - surprise! - higher unemployment.

They should be stimulating the economy. Cutting tax and costs on business to make it more attractive to be based here and hire workers. Overall the tax take would go up. But Labour won’t be seen to be being friendly to business,they’ll just run tue economy into the ground so they don’t get a backbench revolt and flak on Twitter.

People need jobs. Labour decreasing the availability of those by hammering SMEs doesn’t help anyone.

That’s LITERALLY anyone in my village.

this not the level to set things at, anymore than it was when Corbin said £80k was rich.

it depends where you live

if only business had kept salaries in pace with the bonus pay outs and dividends

if ordinary people earn money, they spend it here, they pay more in taxes and need less government top ups.

we should not need housing benefits for those in work, work income should cover it.

Labour can’t do it, they are wedded to the thinking below that you must keep taxing more.

Yes. The richest 50 families in the UK own more that the poorest 50% of the population. We urgently need to tax fairly so tax wealth which at present is not happening enough. It is too easy to off shore, hide wealth. Nearly 20% of land has unknown owners so isn't taxed. Wealth has been sucked up rather than trickling down!

Hard agree

Agree i think a lower threshold and a lower % might work. If more people are paying but a smaller % maybe people would be less likely to do all sorts to avoid the 40%

I agree.
It may 'trickle down' in the sense that a few crumbs from the king's table might make their way to the tables occupied by the peasants. But most of the wealth WHOOSHES straight up to those who are already extremely wealthy.

They’re fucked, they’ve managed to wind up the entire population. Who benefits from a Labour government? The more they tax the lower the tax take as millionaires fuck off and unemployment rises. Utter morons.

I think we need to try something completely different. For example - Give every adult £1000 a month. Get rid of all other benefits. Allow them to spend this however they choose. If people can’t/don’t want to work then that’s their choice but their lifestyle will be extremely basic. The economy will boom because those who already work and don’t ‘need’ this money will increase their saving/spending.

I’m sure people will jump on me with flaws to this system and I’m sure there are many But there are flaws to the current system and any other system that could be adopted and ultimately we cannot continue as we are.

We’ve come to expect benefits and believe we are ‘entitled’ to government money and it’s going to be extremely hard to go back to people understanding that they MUST work to live.

The current system is completely unsustainable- more and more people are diagnosed with things that they claim they can’t work because of which, although extremely sad and worrying, can’t just be funded by money that the country doesn’t have.

It would better to do a root and branch reform of the entire tax system with a view to encouraging more people to pay a lower rate of tax.

Get rid of all the silly complicated taxes that make people try and minimise what they think they owe. Get rid of cliff edge taxes that stop people being more economically productive.

Focus on that rather than trying to tax the hardest people to tax.

@BoredZelda how do we compensate for the tax loss if the multimillionaires leave?

@isthesolution I don't know how £1000 a month would compare in terms of cost of administering the benefit system but I've never heard of a situation where UBI works

A lot of people would just give up work if they got £1000 a month that they aren't already getting. And I wouldn't blame them I probably would too.

I do know that I should probably change my name no idea what's in the budget 😂

Increasing any taxation is not a solution.
We are well beyond the point of "tax saturation". Raising it further on any sector will continue to stifle growth and discourage investment.

For example, four businesses local to me, have been trading for decades and making a reasonable profit around 10%. The recent increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage have directly impact the profit margin to the point where their businesses are barely viable. Three of them say they are planning to wind-up the business unless there's a positive outcome in the budget. I really don't think the cabinet understand how business actually work.

Increasing borrowing is not a solution.
The UK currently owes £3 trillion which incurs £350 million in interest payments daily. We are unable to repay the capital.

The interest rate is the highest it has been for 27 years at 5.75% largely because the bond markets no longer regard the UK as a safe investment and there are safer countries to lend to such as the US.

Most years we spend more than we collect in taxes, resulting in increased borrowing and worsening the situation. (There have only been five years since 1971 when the books balanced so this has been building up for decades through successive governments.)

How about growth?
Labour’s proposal for change was going to be driven by Growth, which flat-lined after they killed business confidence within weeks.

For investors, there are more attractive locations with lower taxation, reduced employee costs, lower energy costs and larger markets. Rising unemployment and inflation are accompanied by increasing tax receipts which are stifling the economy.

How about cutting public spending?
The truth is we have been spending far beyond our means on public spending since the 1970s, but cuts are so unpopular with the electorate that no party is prepared to make any meaningful change. The Conservatives did manage to reduce public spending in real terms, but it is generally accepted that this contributed to their loss in the 2024 general election.
The recent debacle with KS and RR trying to trim a morsel off public spending shows it certainly isn't going to happen with the current government either.

So what’s going to happen…?
I was rather hoping, we could carry on kicking the can down the road for another 20 years, but I think that's looking unlikely.

Much of Europe has the same problem, especially France. it will be interesting to see to see how that plays out as we will probably follow.

👏👏

There are very few examples of a universal benefit although trials of this in other countries had very positive results.

I think you’d find people were more incentivised to work not less but yes some would stop working. It’s not a perfect system but I’d love to see it trialled. I’m not sure there’s anything else I can see as an option - we are in a very bad place financially.