Taxing the rich to pay for the poor

Of whom? Lawyers who earn very little?

GSM you are very scathing, I find that rather sad.

annsixty

I wonder if the new Duke and Duchess of Westminster will ever get round to spending their tens of billions?
No envy by the way, they are just a lucky and lovely young couple starting out on a life together but this is inherited wealth, not earned in any way.
I have no idea how much the estate paid in inheritance tax on the death of his father.

I've been thinking about billionaires. Given many rich people are generously charitable, I wonder if there could be incentive to give more. I know they, too, must cover outgoings -- what are outgoings on "Half of Mayfair"?

The Duke of Westminster "ranked 15th on the Sunday Times Rich List 2024 with an estimated fortune of £10.127 billion." With so much property in legal trusts, I'd wonder if he could support even more worthy causes?

Regardless, beautiful bride, prettiest since Princess Margaret. Lovely flowers and generous gesture of ice cream for all visitors.

David49

The stats I quoted are ONS calculations.
From other sources there are 55 billionaires in the UK the remainder of the 1% highest wealth is made up of around 540,000 adults in the UK with a Median wealth of £3.6m.
(Pop 67m - 13m children x 1%).

The ONS on one hand refers to 1% of population and in the other ONS stats refer to households which is confusing. We have to remember that wealth is assets less liabilities and I know plenty with lavish lifestyles you assume are wealthy, that are borrowed to the hilt.

It’s not hard to imagine a nice house, a holiday cottage, a couple of cars, all paid for plus a good pension pot, it could easily come to £2m, and within the 1% wealthiest

I thought you said people with £3m were amongst the top 1%, not £2m? I would expect a nice house, holiday cottage, a couple of cars and a good pension pot to be worth more than £2m, unless the properties are in cheaper areas.

Dinahmo, lawyers who earn between £28k and £60k, as you suggest, are not up to much. I chose to work in a provincial firm many years ago when my son was young, but even then earned far more than that. A qualified lawyer earning that sort of salary is pretty mediocre.

The stats I quoted are ONS calculations.
From other sources there are 55 billionaires in the UK the remainder of the 1% highest wealth is made up of around 540,000 adults in the UK with a Median wealth of £3.6m.
(Pop 67m - 13m children x 1%).

The ONS on one hand refers to 1% of population and in the other ONS stats refer to households which is confusing. We have to remember that wealth is assets less liabilities and I know plenty with lavish lifestyles you assume are wealthy, that are borrowed to the hilt.

It’s not hard to imagine a nice house, a holiday cottage, a couple of cars, all paid for plus a good pension pot, it could easily come to £2m, and within the 1% wealthiest

There is a lot of talk, from some but not all on here about the unemployed and benefits so some figures taken from the 2nd quarter of this year.

The unemployment rate is 4.4% - approx 1.51 m

Approx 1.5 m are on unemployment benefit

There are 9.2m between the ages of 16 and 64 not actively looking for work. this will be students, people supported by their parents, those who took early retirement and who may or may not have taken up some sort of business activity.

6.4m are on Universal Credit, which in case you don't know, is paid to those with low earnings or who are out of work, to help with living costs.

Finally, there are a variety of sickness benefits but people have to jump through hoops to get these. I refer you to the film "I Daniel Blake"

foxie48

GSM we can't all be lawyers, bankers, doctors, etc. We have jobs that may not require a huge amount of training but they require skills that lots of people don't seem to have like empathy, kindness and the ability to make people feel safe and cared for when they are feeling frightened and vulnerable. I think those roles have value and the people who do them should have our respect and they should be paid properly so they don't need to claim universal credit in order to pay their bills.

foxie for PM!

GrannyRose15

For those of you who think NI contributions pay for benefits or pensions it doesn’t and never has done. Everything goes into one pot. Nye Bevan is reported to have said “The secret of the (welfare) fund is there is no fund.” One could say we have been conned.

No, I don't think that's true. Most people are fully aware that there is no 'pot'. The con is that we are always being told that there is no money for social justice. There is - it's just that pretending otherwise sounds better than saying governments don't care about the welfare of their voters.

Germanshepherdsmum

Yes.

Sorry but that is outrageous.

Most of us will probably need an health care worker at some point in our lives. Most of us do not need highly paid lawyers or solicitors apart from conveyancing or wills or if we get into trouble.

As you are no doubt aware many lawyers earn low salaries between £28k and £60k. Would you class their work as being dead end?

Freya5

Cath9

What is your opinion of this idea from labour.

It stinks. Absolutely appalling. As a single mum,I scraped and saved, working as a nurse, to fund a deposit and buy a home for us. A 15.40% interest rates found me nearly having to sell, with neg equity. I hung on, just. Now retired,house no mortgage, modest equity as do not live in an expensive area, and paying tax on my pension, why the hell should we pay more tax on something we have earned to fund anyone. Another damn good reason not to vote Labour.

Hang on. The OP is asking very broadly about taxing the rich to pay for the poor. The LP is not suggesting anything being discussed on this thread, AFAIK. Feel free not to vote for me if you don't like my tentative ideas about levelling up, but they have nothing to do with the Labour Party .

Many people believe they are rich, when objectively they are nothing of the kind, and taxing 'the rich' wouldn't come close to affecting them. It's therefore very easy to scare people by implying that they would be impacted by policies aimed at making things fairer across the board.

GSM we can't all be lawyers, bankers, doctors, etc. We have jobs that may not require a huge amount of training but they require skills that lots of people don't seem to have like empathy, kindness and the ability to make people feel safe and cared for when they are feeling frightened and vulnerable. I think those roles have value and the people who do them should have our respect and they should be paid properly so they don't need to claim universal credit in order to pay their bills.

For those of you who think NI contributions pay for benefits or pensions it doesn’t and never has done. Everything goes into one pot. Nye Bevan is reported to have said “The secret of the (welfare) fund is there is no fund.” One could say we have been conned.

Pantglas2

Casdon - this is where Farage surprised me by suggesting that the cap on family allowance should be lifted and people should be encouraged to have more children!

Does he take advice from the Pope?

Doodledog

I agree that house values are on paper for the owner until the sale, maddie, so that is the point at which tax should be levied. House price rises in some areas causes huge inequality. People in cheaper areas struggle to move to more expensive ones, so stay where pay is lower and opportunities fewer. Obviously they also have less to leave the next generation too, so the geographical differentials get even more pronounced. Investment goes to areas where there is more money, which pushes prices up further, and the cycle continues.

Those whose houses have risen in value like foxie's X have the ability to move to cheaper areas and release significant sums by buying an identical house. Similarly, if they are unfortunate enough to need care it will take a lot longer to use up their capital, and they are far more likely to have money to leave to their children when the time comes than Y, who may well have spend an equivalent sum on her own house when she bought it, but been unable to leave the cheaper area, probably earned less as a result, and will have less (if anything) to leave behind.

Any government interested in levelling up needs to look at this one way or another. It wouldn't be right to cause people to be unable to afford to live in their own houses, so I'm not in favour of taxing people that way. Maybe owners of houses which have risen in price by an average of more than X% (or £X) per year from buying to selling, or by more than the national average rise, should pay a price inflation tax on sale? Or some other formula that brings back some of the unearned money in housing. I don't know what would be fairest, but whatever the formula the money should be ring-fenced to be spent on social housing.

Doodledog Any government interested in levelling up needs to look at this one way or another. It wouldn't be right to cause people to be unable to afford to live in their own houses, so I'm not in favour of taxing people that way. Maybe owners of houses which have risen in price by an average of more than X% (or £X) per year from buying to selling, or by more than the national average rise, should pay a price inflation tax on sale? Or some other formula that brings back some of the unearned money in housing. I don't know what would be fairest, but whatever the formula the money should be ring-fenced to be spent on social housing.

Perhaps Capital Gain Tax on selling, yes even primary home, after all costs incurred are factored in (purchase, stamp duty, renovations, additions, etc) with money ring-fenced for social housing.

I'd rather that than IHT at such a low level.

I’m sure he thinks women should only be in the kitchen and bedroom, not the boardroom Pantglas2 - tie them to the house with lots of children. That ship has sailed!

Casdon - this is where Farage surprised me by suggesting that the cap on family allowance should be lifted and people should be encouraged to have more children!

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t mind anyone sitting on their backside if they are not taking taxpayers’ money. I very much mind people claiming benefits when they could work (or work in a different job or longer hours).

Actually that does surprise me. I thought your view would be that working age adults should work regardless of their income to help reduce immigration? I’m not being sarcastic, but with a falling birth rate I don’t see how the country can afford passengers, regardless of their income.

Cath9

What is your opinion of this idea from labour.

It stinks. Absolutely appalling. As a single mum,I scraped and saved, working as a nurse, to fund a deposit and buy a home for us. A 15.40% interest rates found me nearly having to sell, with neg equity. I hung on, just. Now retired,house no mortgage, modest equity as do not live in an expensive area, and paying tax on my pension, why the hell should we pay more tax on something we have earned to fund anyone. Another damn good reason not to vote Labour.

I like the idea of a tax on house sellers fitting a certain criteria Doodledog in particular ring fencing the money for social housing and wouldn’t get too hung up on leaving money to children, if the seller had any.
I think many people are slightly obsessed about leaving money to the next generation, sometimes to their own detriment when alive.

Dear God. So we bought a house for cash in an expensive area and its value has risen accordingly. Why should anyone else share in that increase? We paid a lot of money, and a lot of stamp duty, for our home. Why should anyone else, who has contributed bugger all towards the value, be entitled to a slice of the cake?

David49

What is wealthy, curious I looked up median wealth for UK, surprising to me was it’s only £550,000, highest was the 55yrs+. Another surprise was the wealthiest 1% begins at £3 million.
So there aren’t too many over that level but a lot £550k - £3m..

I'm very very surprised by the median (and yes I do know what median is). I'm equally very very surprised by the 1%. I agree that the number between £550k - £3m must be quite large.

Link please?

I agree that house values are on paper for the owner until the sale, maddie, so that is the point at which tax should be levied. House price rises in some areas causes huge inequality. People in cheaper areas struggle to move to more expensive ones, so stay where pay is lower and opportunities fewer. Obviously they also have less to leave the next generation too, so the geographical differentials get even more pronounced. Investment goes to areas where there is more money, which pushes prices up further, and the cycle continues.

Those whose houses have risen in value like foxie's X have the ability to move to cheaper areas and release significant sums by buying an identical house. Similarly, if they are unfortunate enough to need care it will take a lot longer to use up their capital, and they are far more likely to have money to leave to their children when the time comes than Y, who may well have spend an equivalent sum on her own house when she bought it, but been unable to leave the cheaper area, probably earned less as a result, and will have less (if anything) to leave behind.

Any government interested in levelling up needs to look at this one way or another. It wouldn't be right to cause people to be unable to afford to live in their own houses, so I'm not in favour of taxing people that way. Maybe owners of houses which have risen in price by an average of more than X% (or £X) per year from buying to selling, or by more than the national average rise, should pay a price inflation tax on sale? Or some other formula that brings back some of the unearned money in housing. I don't know what would be fairest, but whatever the formula the money should be ring-fenced to be spent on social housing.

Certainly dead end wages, you can’t afford to live on those wages but that’s the way it is, the same for many semi skilled jobs, That’s all my wife gets in the local supermarket but at least you get a discount on the shopping, and she enjoys the work.

Yes.