Just look at when Rishi Sunak released his tax return. He is from one of the UK’s 350 richest families, yet paid the same effective tax rate as an average teacher, despite having income more than 50 times higher.
That doesn’t sound fair to me, and it won’t sound fair to millions of people across the country who are struggling to get by and fed up with politics working for the rich and powerful over everyone else.
So what’s your suggestion of fair then?
At the budget, Rachel Reeves could generate tens of billions of pounds by making tax changes that are overwhelmingly popular with the public and would be paid only by those with the broadest shoulders. Three-quarters of us want a wealth tax on net fortunes over £10m (backed by world-leading economists). Equalising capital gains tax with income tax is favoured by the majority too.
That 2% wealth tax would be a 100% tax upon risk free income.
No, really. Gilts pay 5%, you pay – -ish – 50% income tax on the interest. Then someone takes 2% of the capital value each year and that’s before we account for inflation so your tax rate is well over 100% then.
Or capital gains. So you own BP shares. BP already pays 20% or whatever corporation tax (and 78% on North Sea). So that’s 20% knocked off the value of your shares there. Now you want 45% income tax upon it as well? And without inflation indexing, so that again your real return will be asymptotically approacing zero. In fact, for long term holdings, will go below zero.
That’s fair is it?
Quite apart from what 100% and more taxation of the returns to investment will do to levels of investment…..
Fair?
Fuck off.
“Equalising capital gains tax with income tax is favoured by the majority too.”
You can fuck right off with that. The equity I hold in my business is part of my pension pot. Paying 18% tax on that is bad enough (as BADR rates increase). If I’m faced with 45%, I really would go live somewhere else for five years to avoid it.
The chancellor is missing an open goal by looking at inheritance tax while searching for the elusive billions needed to fix Britain
The ‘ elusive billions’ are found easily.
– End Net Zero
– Abolish DIE and all the panoply of bureaucracy and law related to Hate crimes.
– Abolish the EHRC and all ‘anti- discrimination’
law
– End the entire racket around LGBT Alphabet soup
That’s just for starters.
Initiate the ‘Murphy Tax’ which will be levied specifically against those publicly calling for greater levels of tax – along the lines of the various levies against North Sea Oil producers.
Obviously we need to send vast numbers of illegals back and rehouse many of the others so we’ll need to restrict the HRA solely to British citizens – no one else. Change the law so existing cases being brought under it by foreign nationals are automatically rejected. Any law firms bringing such cases will be automatically suspended. All politicians calling for ‘safe and legal routes’ to be mandatorily subject to recall elections on the grounds of treason. Establishment of separate courts staffed solely by Conservative judges to hear any cases of this type. Switch illegals in hotels that cannot be deported to outdoor facilities as they are doing in Greece.
The option are there –
as Steve says there just needs to be the will to implement them.
But rich people SHOULD pay more tax.
No, not me, I’m not rich, I’m poor and struggling by with just £5 million. I mean those rich people over there, they have £10 million.
Adjust the amounts and I think that’s what most people mean when they say rich people should pay more tax.
Obviously spending is the issue anyway, because government spending has increased way over inflation for the last few years.
More tax is not the solution because that would simply encourage more bad behaviour by the government.
Besides, the most important question is whether higher tax rates and new taxes would actually increase revenue. How is the last budget working out on that front?
. . . yet paid the same effective tax rate as an average teacher, despite having income more than 50 times higher.
So he paid more than 50 times as much tax as an average teacher. So if teacher pays £10,000, Mr Big Income pays more than half a million quid. Sounds a lot fairer then. These shits always swap between rates and totals to advance their lies.
It’s just “polispeak” – that is words take on new meanings based on what their utterers intend them to mean.. eg “cuts” actually means “reduced increases” and “fair” means “unfair”. A “fair” tax would be that everyone pays the same rate – in Richi’s case he’d still pay 50 times more tax than someone earning 1/50th of his income – which is quite a lot really. Better that HMG looks at getting value for what little spending it genuinely needs to do rather than make moves to drive the productive class out of the country.
What PJF and BJ said.
And we should have a special tax on teachers so that whenever they open their cakeholes to regurgitate some green socialist bollocks to suggestible children they are hit with massive fines.
“… that are overwhelmingly popular with the public… “ Of course! Conditioned by Socialism to be greedy parasites icing off others: robbing selective Peter to pay collective Paul.
“overwhelmingly popular” with members of specially selected Labour-supporting “focus groups”.
Personally I don’t begrudge Jethro Tull or Robert Stephenson or Joseph Bazalgette or James Dyson a penny of what they have earned by making our lives better
“Three-quarters of us want to kill those with net fortunes over £10m, and take their stuff.”
Fixed it.
If a majority want it, it must be okay.
‘people across the country who are struggling to get by’
Note that “struggling” is a journalist word meaning that due to their projection, the JOURNALIST would be struggling if in their situation.
Similar, but different, politicians only want to protect people’s “hard earned money,” but not the rest.
“He is from one of the UK’s 350 richest families”
I’ll bet he isn’t – his father was a GP and his mother ran her own chemist’s shop. They clearly did well enough to send their boy to Winchester – as a day boy – though even then he may well have been bright enough to win a scholarship. “Richest” my arse.
His wife is from one of India’s richest families (tho the money has all been made this past 30 years)….
Fair tax to me means something like a flat income tax of 15%, a flat CGT likewise, no inheritance tax, VAT as now…and a state that lives within its means, because state borrowing is simply deferred taxation.
Theo, don’t forget that CGT must be index-linked to avoid paying tax on inflation caused by the government (in its interests).
“His wife is from one of India’s richest families”: aye, but that wasn’t the claim made, was it?
And:
Fair is subjective, love
No, wrong. What is fair – and the principles underlying it – can be rationally discussed and assessed. They may not be wholly objective, but they are not wholly subjective either. If fairness is subjective, then her view of fairness has as much validity as yours….
No, he pays the same *rate*. That’s totally fair. Even super-fair as he’s paying a hell of a lot *more* but guaranteed to be using fewer government services.
I mean, FFS, even *GOD* only wants 10%.
Agree with Theo and Agamamon. Pick a rate. 15%? Fine. Apply it to EVERYONE. Exempting lower income earners is evil. Not ‘fair.’ There is no f&&&ing reason why Gamecock should pay a different rate than his neighbor. Not charging lower income people leaves them free to vote for all sorts of stupid government programs. Equality. Get some!
Looking at the Sunak claim, it points to this: https://taxjustice.uk/blog/rishi-sunak-pays-22-8-tax-on-2-2-million-in-earnings/ which says:
Today Rishi Sunak’s tax return has been made publicly available, showing he has an effective tax rate of just 22.8%, despite bringing in more than £2.2 million in earnings.
This is the same effective tax rate as a PAYE employee who earns circa £42k. For comparison, the average teacher earns £41,600 per year, with an effective tax rate of 22.8%
The tax return is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prime-minister-rishi-sunaks-schedule-of-taxable-sources-of-income-and-gains-202223 and says Rishi paid a total of £508308. You must add up all the income for yourself, but it comes to £2,229,086. A simple division shows that this is 23.4% – not the rate claimed.
A teacher on £41,600 would pay £5,806 income tax and £2,322.40 NI which is a total of £8,128.40 which is a tax rate of 19.5% – not the rate claimed. To be taxed at 23.4% I calculate the teacher would have to be paid £56,759 – not hugely different, but quite significant.
And that, of course, ignores the fact that the huge majority of Rishi’s tax is capital gains tax and tax on dividends. A teacher on the stated salary would have a £500 personal savings allowance for interest and a £2,000 dividend tax free allowance. I don’t know if the “average teacher” has any savings or shares, but that could also make a further difference in the same direction.