Taxing the very rich

It's where it is spent that seems relevant to me. If 10 millionaires have a tax break of 1 million each, that money is unlikely to be at a High Street near you anytime soon. It is like to be squirrelled away in a tax Haven spent on yacht amendments or something of that sort. If 1 million poorer people get a tax break of £10, the economy will be boosted by that sum, as it will be spent in supermarkets, petrol stations, clothing shops etc. Logic - keep tax high for the richest, low for the poorest, and the economy gains.

I suppose those millionaires are not the ones that donate to the Conservative party.

Katie59

So there are at least 30 rich people with a conscience, the rest probably don’t agree, certainly not to a wealth tax.
There are plenty ways to surcharge income tax, corporation tax, even council tax that targets the wealthy.

Of course, there are lots of ways to increase the taxation of the rich, But they'd all be labelled as 'wealth taxes' by the squeaking pips

varian

Are you saying Maizie that if taxing the wealth of the very rich could bring billions of extra cash into the government coffers it would not enable them to spend more?

I don't think it would make any difference to the spending of, say, a government like our current one, because it's determined cut state funding and enterprise. But for a different government, it could spend more and not have to issue new money to cover its spending and compensate for the money that the rich are draining out of the domestic economy.

So there are at least 30 rich people with a conscience, the rest probably don’t agree, certainly not to a wealth tax.
There are plenty ways to surcharge income tax, corporation tax, even council tax that targets the wealthy.

Are you saying Maizie that if taxing the wealth of the very rich could bring billions of extra cash into the government coffers it would not enable them to spend more?

Oh, goodness. You'll all know what I'm going to say before I say it, but taxation doesn't fund spending...

OTOH, 'the rich' are the ones who are sucking money out of our domestic economy and making sure that as much of it as possible isn't taxable. This money should be returned to the economy to work for the country and improve the lives of the considerably less well off, not lying idle in a tax haven.

Richard Murphy, who we met on another thread this morning, has a lot to say and some useful links:

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/08/09/we-need-to-tax-wealth-more-but-in-the-right-way/