No, raising CGT for investors in UK companies to income tax levels is dumb. Even Starmer is talking about creating and attracting wealth now, although he doubtless will put up taxes once PM, probably both income and capital. As to your 350 multi-million and billionaires, there is risk they will move their domicile and wealth (possibly major companies and employment) out of the country. It's a general strategy that Dennis Healy proved does not work. On a similar principle, Ireland owes much of its current prosperity to lowering corporation taxes for multi national companies to base there. Sunak paid a lower rate because his salary came from capital gains and not, for example, employment or investment income. Maybe a good government tax advisor could try to catch more of this, but raising all CGT to income tax levels would ultimately risk bankrupting the country because lack of investment would cause companies to leave the UK and go to a more tax and investor friendly jurisdictions, mostly US
These are just the usual specious arguments for not taxing the rich. Nigel Lawson, that raging socialist, equalised income and capital gains tax rates in 1988 and they remained equal for 20 years, a rather prosperous period for the UK economy.
The Greens have the most left wing economic and taxation policies from what I can see. Sadly though they have been colonised by the nutter element of Corbyn’s Labour, the anti semites and trans activists.
By 1988, the economy was indeed flourishing under the Thatcher goverment, such that it could stand a tax hike. Ask yourself why Alistair Darling reduced CGT in 2008. It was to encourage people to establish businesses in the UK. The UK economy post Covid and energy crisis is sick. Starmer and Reeves bang on about growth. Growth won't be achieved through massive tax hikes
This was good in the Times on this: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...5?shareToken=7f1cf0a69ecb193b7083babc638b3d06
We shouldn't have to wait for economic growth to generate the funds needed to fix everything the Tories have broken. Labour should raise taxes from day one and the most effective way to do that would be via a once-off windfall wealth tax. The website that I directed you to earlier suggested that a tax of 2% on the 350 wealthiest families would raise £16 billion, but why stop there? Make it 10% and raise £80 billion. There are 165 billionaires in the UK with total wealth upwards of £700 billion. If you're Gopi Hinduja and you're worth £37 billion, would you really miss the odd £3.7 billion? Equally, the Sunak family could probably get by if they lost £73m from their £730m pot. The Patriotic Millionaires site suggests that 3 out of 5 of the wealthiest in the country would favour a wealth tax.
The American oil tycoon, Paul Getty, lived near Guildford. In his huge mansion, all but his private phone were pay phones. When he was asked why, he replied, You think I got rich by giving money away? So, good luck in trying to find rich taxpayers prepared to pay an additional 3.7 billion tax, without massive adverse consequences to this country when they change their tax domicile and move to their Texan ranch.
They don't have to be prepared to pay it, we just take it anyway. You don't announce it beforehand and give them the chance to move their domicile, you just do it.
They have... WealthTaxFinalReport_FAQ.pdf (wealthandpolicy.com) Liability for the wealth tax is based on residence status over a period before the tax is announced. This means that individuals who have been resident in the UK in the last few years would still have to pay it: leaving even before any announcement would not prevent liability. Since liability is only based on past residence, there is nothing to deter people from coming to the UK in future.
Can you give any examples of jurisdictions where a wealth tax has been successful? France, Germany and Ireland’s tanked and they abandoned them.
You really should read this stuff. Where wealth taxes have been unsuccessful is where they have been levied as an annual tax. What I'm advocating is an unavoidable one-off tax based on assets held on a date prior to when the tax is announced. The wealth taxes most often referred to as ‘failures’ (e.g. France, Germany, Sweden) were all annual, not one-off. It is true that annual wealth taxes have been abandoned in many countries over recent decades. Today only three OECD countries still have them: Norway, Switzerland and Spain. Of these, Switzerland’s wealth tax is actually quite successful and raises significant revenue despite its low rate. But in general, the annual wealth taxes implemented to date have faced difficulties with high administrative costs relative to revenue and ease of avoidance. Both of these challenges are greatly reduced under a one-off tax.
The Rich may tolerate a wealth tax in Switzerland because overall, Swiss taxes are low. After all, the Rich don't move to Switzerland just for the skiing and mountain walking. France is a poor example. If you remember, the tax-racked wealthy French were coming to live over here. London was France's fifth largest city. This guy advises the TUC on tax, and is not a fan of a wealth tax because of the difficulties in obtaining valuations:- https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/05/10/wealth-taxes-wont-work/ I just have a bad feeling Labour will go for a wealth tax, investments inward to the UK will dry up due to lack of trust/confidence by foreign investors, and the Left will blame Brexit
Tories promising loads of stuff that they have had 14 years to do but never got round too, safe in the knowledge that they won’t really have the opportunity now so they can promise anything. Labour will match Tory defence spending promises. But voting for Starmer will mean CHANGE. Ed Davey planning a carefully staged for the media sky diving accident to make sure the Lib Dem’s aren’t ignored
