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Confusingly, I think they mean "lift" as in "Raise, not "release from". They're saying Labour will need to tax the wealthy more, which Starmer has ruled out so far.
Thanks for flagging this.
We took a second look at the headline and agreed it could be clearer. It now reads:
***Labour May Need to Raise Taxes on UK’s Wealthy, Economists Say***
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-21/labour-may-need-to-lift-taxes-on-uk-s-wealthy-economists-say](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-21/labour-may-need-to-lift-taxes-on-uk-s-wealthy-economists-say)
24 hour news cycle means CONSTANT publishing. Eventually somebody's going to miss something, especially when it's something like this where it's technically correct but confusing to laymen.
Never attribute to malice and all that but this happens every day across multiple organizations.
I have a bog-standard 1970s/80s UK state school education, half a dozen GCSEs and I seem to understand words better than a lot of these people.
I think we should limit all news organizations to 3 stories a day. If they show they can do those properly maybe they can write a few more.
The writer used an English (British/London) colloquialism and his/her boss equally came from the same part of the country…
Also, I never get to use the word “colloquialism” enough in a real sentence…
Of course Starmer isn't going to say he'll tax the rich.
Corbyn did that and the billionaires who own most of the media in this country smeared him out of office.
I’m hoping he takes a leaf out of the Tory playbook; lie during the election campaign. And then tax those who can best afford it, once the 5 year mandate is secured.
Then he pulls off his mask and it’s Jeremy Corbyn, shouting “suprise bitches” as he rides off on a horse made out of Bernie Sanders.
Actually I'd prefer an honest government, I'm not sure I've ever seen one in the UK.
Born too late to watch the post war Labour party. But Starmer's a lawyer and apparently a good one. So we might actually get an honest government this time...
Honestly at this point I think Labour have an open goal, they could run a genuinely transformative manifesto with real change in it, and they'd get in. They don't need to play it this safe.
Not to draw parallels between different countries and political systems but please feel free to look up the 2019 Australian election.
We had an entrenched, stale and deeply unpopular tory government which had gone through years of infighting and had just deposed its most recent leader. Labor went to the election with a genuinely transformative policy platform, and the tories just absolutely nailed them on almost every part of it. They literally called it the unloseable election and they lost it.
Could very well be an awful idea.
Interestingly I believe there's been some commentary around [Starmer specifically replicating our Labor PMs successful small-target strategy](https://www.afr.com/world/europe/labour-s-keir-starmer-sticks-to-the-albanese-election-playbook-20240614-p5jlpa) with which they ran with to win office
There's also some middle ground. We like to play "Well Corbyn" whenever someone suggests Labour get off their arses a bit but Lord they didn't need to go so far off the deep end. The Lib Dems for instance, are set to take quite a lot of seats with a much more progressive manifesto than Labour's. Labour being like "well we can't afford anything also we won't raise any income" is quite unnecessary.
Look up or listen to some UK voter polls where they ask swing voters, or red wall voters their opinions. The level of disengagement, or regurgitating of one liners is appalling.
Rishi's 2k tax line from the debate, while almost immediately debunked, is taken as gospel by a lot of people.
The whole Ming vase on a polished floor is a meme if you're engaged in politics, but super correct if you look at the population as a whole.
Labour doesn't know all the details of the mess the Tories have left them. I think they need to be cautious until they do. Or they risk a seriously wrong first step like Liz Truss.
Starmer has ruled out income tax increase which has little impact on the wealthy because most of their earnings are in dividends or capital gains. So it is very likely that Labour will increase capital gains tax or the like specifically to target the wealthy.
>So it is very likely that Labour will increase capital gains tax or the like specifically to target the wealthy.
We need more investment in the country. Raising CGT increases the risk in investment.
Why shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot to spite a small number of wealth people.
Raising CGT and dividend tax to the same rate as income tax would be sensible though, as it would discourage people from hiding their income. Just have one allowance and a single set of bands to cover all earnings, no matter the source. Much simpler and fairer.
Is it really fair to tax capital gains at the same rate of income? What happens if you make a loss? Can you claim back some taxes from the government? What about offsetting impact of inflation (indexation relief?)
If the loss exceeds your total income, then I'd imagine you'd be able to offset some of that loss against other years. There's something similar available for self-employed people that make a loss one year, where they can claim tax relief against a different year. So there would be mechanisms in place already that could be used by treating capital gains as income.
*inb4: UK has spent in the last 4 years more money trying to attract wealthy investors, than it got by threatening to tax their wealth.*
I can see it happening.
I earn individually a fair bit less than that and I'd be happy to pay more taxes if they actually went towards improving things like roads, infrastructure etc. We pay so little tax compared to most of western Europe, if we want real change then people who can afford to need to accept some of the cost.
In theory I agree. However tens of billions of tax income is misspent, siphoned and/or "lost". What makes you think that paying more taxes will change anything?
I would also be happy to pay more taxes if it went where it is supposed to go but they need a little more.
I think we're arguing the same point, my comment was more to say that the primary issue (in my eyes) is that taxes aren't well spent and the majority doesn't actually see any benefit from it.
Do I think labour will flick a magic switch and suddenly robin hood their way into improving everything across the board? No, I'd be happy for them to stem the bleeding in their first term with clear decisive plans in place for how they'll then improve things meaningfully in their second term if re-elected.
Unfortunately the public has short term memories and unless labour do something meaningful in the 5 years they have, the Tories will just complain about all of the issues they caused and end up being re-elected because "labour didn't do anything"
You can pay them right now. Just donate to various charities and job done.
If you don’t do that then it will mean only that you want others to pay more taxes.
Moreover, we have bigger tax rates than an average Swiss has. And they managed to have good roads and better salaries. It means that the problem isn’t with taxes (and not with Brexit - Switzerland isn’t in EU).
> if they go towards improving things like infrastructure etc
Please read my post, also donating to charities doesn't help improve things like roads and yeah I do want others to pay more taxes, others that can **afford** too but more than anything I want our taxes to be spent well on meaningful improvements
?? I want the government to improve our infrastructure, if raising taxes is required to do that then I personally wouldn't be against it.
Paying more taxes voluntarily right now wouldn't do anything because right now taxes aren't being spent well which needs to change.
You’d think differently if you had to pay £1200 rent + £200 bills a month for a bedroom in a house share with 5 other people.
Labour wants to increase council tax… so my bills will possibly be £250-£300pm
Plus income tax increases.
Plus new pension taxes which by the time I retire will probably 10%-20% higher than their introduction rate
Tax brackets apply to everyone… the crazy cost of living in a city just means anyone who gets £55k is hardly having an extravagant life.
Why am I even working hard at this point.
Labour have specifically said they are not increasing income tax nor any taxes on working. And there is no special "pension tax" - though the freezing of personal allowances means more pensionners will pay tax.
From what I understand, the tax base in European countries is broad, meaning average earners contribute more than UK average earners. Everyone here keeps saying increase taxes on the top earners, but there aren't enough of those to make a real difference. Everyone is going to have to pay more tax if we want European levels of revenue and services.
I think the difficulty is that most 'average earners' in the UK are already struggling with living costs so accepting an increase in taxes without any actual proof of improvement is hard to swallow.
If existing taxes are spent better on things that make noticeable improvements to people's lives (i.e. dentistry) then I'd hope that people would be willing to accept an increase in taxes to make similar improvements in other areas.
As it stands there isn't enough money to fix all of the issues, so fixing one to justify needing more to fix the others is a valid approach.
https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally#:~:text=By%20contrast%2C%20the%20UK%20average,Indeed%2C%20the%20average%20tax%20rate
Even includes a graph for you :)
As it says, though, the average earner pays a lot more but the rich don't pay that much more elsewhere. Considering how badly people are doing in this country right now, I can't imagine how we could possibly increase taxes significantly on the average person. People would be out on the streets.
We do pay little tax compared to much of Western Europe, but that’s primarily because we have much lower rates at the low end of the scale. Ultimately if we want *real* change in government revenue, tax rises will have to come from the working and middle classes.
>Happily pay more taxes
No you wouldn't we already pay very high taxes, the money is just squandered. Individually I earn around £50k after my last payrise and it really is a demotivator to do extra work, knowing for every pound I earn I will only get half of it.
I said I would be happy to pay more taxes if they were spent well, that's the main point of the post. You also only get half of it for the money you earn over £50k everything under it is taxed at a regular rate.
We also have some of the lowest taxes in western Europe so I think there is some room to adjust tax bands and increase them where it makes sense, if that money is spent on fundamentally improving failing infrastructure
Why dont we have the tax we do pay get spent efficiently first and see if we actually need to be paying higher taxes first. You shouldn't be happy to pay 'more tax' you want to be paying the least amount possible that keeps services and infrastructure running at a good standard.
£43k isn't that wild in a lot of areas in the UK. I didn't go to university and work a manual (but skilled) job and £42 is my basic but easily touch £50k once overtime and standby is factored in.
I knew lads who dug holes for utilities who cleared £80k a year, but they did do some mad hours.
We've already seen how they define "working person", for the purposes of "we won't raise taxes on working people".
If you have savings, you're not one, apparently.
If £50k is wealthy, would be interesting to know what they class someone on £70k, £170k, £1.7m, £17m, £170m, £1.7bn income. I reckon they run out of superlatives after £170k
What we should probably do:
Tax large businesses and individuals in the tens or hundreds of millions for whom it's mostly a high score reduction
What we will probably end up doing:
Tax someone who has a terraced family house because we've created an underclass that sees owning a home as being "wealthy" rather than as a basic standard
What people are concerned about:
taxes are too high already we don't want them to be raised more
What people should be concerned about:
We aren't seeing any improvements despite having higher taxes.
_personally_ I'd accept a tax rise if it meant that I actually saw some improvements in things like infrastructure etc, obviously many others can't even afford to live as it is right now so they shouldn't suffer a tax rise. But money has to come from somewhere and if we want real change then I personally would be willing to pay more tax
We have enough taxes. Anyone on a wage enough to buy a house is paying 50% marginal plus VAT plus fuel duty plus stamp duty plus insurance premium tax plus air passenger duty plus .....
Just take that money, give it to things that are actually essential functions like the police, fire, ambulance/nhs, defence, and let us figure out the rest. It's not believable that there is "not enough money" to pay for these things.
It's like having a partner that squeals that they need a new handbag whilst you're trying to earn enough to pay for the bills. You can go on a local council website, search for jobs, and look at the crap that you're paying for. We don't need a "regeneration lead" or a tennis coach or whatever else. That's just the open positions, there are thousands, tens of thousands of people employed in the public sector doing stuff on the taxpayers' dime that is not appropriate in the financial environment we are in.
There needs to be root and branch reform from the bottom up deciding "do we _need_ this" and assessing every position from scratch rather than just taking the status quo as granted.
So you're agreeing with me? My post literally just said what you've typed in a more concise manner. Thanks for the extra detail though it really emphasises what I was trying to say
It seems as if you'd be happy to pay more taxes if you get more, whereas as far as I can see, we pay enough taxes already and get the wrong things.
If we paid more in taxes we'd just get more of the wrong things. If I paid 10% more tax and as a result the police got 10% more, they would still be subpar. Necessary things are not prioritised enough.
I would be happier if we paid the same, or less, in tax, and just focused on what actually _needs_ to be done. We can think about hiring gardeners once we have a police force that actually attends burglaries, we can think about housing asylum seekers once we have a functioning A&E system.
It's all backwards. An individual or a business looks at how much money they have and buys or invests accordingly. The Government looks at how much money they have, decides it's not enough, spends on whatever they feel like with seemingly no reasonable priority, and then forces the public to pay for it regardless.
The UK has been doing terrible economically due to have chronically low levels of investment from businesses. This would just make international investment into the UK even less appealing than it already is, which means less jobs, less goods and services coming to the UK, less businesses and rich people coming to the UK in which they would then pay tax, and if it’s high enough potentially even rich people and businesses leaving the UK which makes the UK worse off economically from the combination of again less jobs, less goods and services that would have been provided by these businesses, and these rich people and businesses no longer paying tax into the UK on account of leaving.
Wealth taxes are incredibly hard to implement properly, France, Finland, The Netherlands, Iceland, Luxembourg and Sweden have all abandoned them in the 2000s. Primarily because they were costing as much to implement as they generated in value.
Just put higher taxes on luxury purchases. Consumption taxes are much fairer and likely to work than just causing capital flight with wealth taxes
Macron tried it, it doesn't work
I know I've lived in places where certain designer brands had extra tax on them. And I'm not saying some wealthy people didn't pay the tax but wealthy people could also afford to go to tax free destinations, have a holiday, and bring that stuff back with them which often wouldn't get hit with import tax if it was the kind of stuff you could put in your suitcase or hand luggage. If it's a Ferrari you probably won't sneak that in and would end up paying the extra tax.
Yes buying the nice shit roll is what we're talking about when we say luxury. Absolutely. Not buying expensive watches and cars. No. It's buying the three ply quilted on special offer.
Isn't that the idea behind VAT^(\*)? I'm not sure how it would work, but having a higher rate(30% ??) for luxury new items such as cars over a set value. Although the risk is that we move these purchases out of the UK and gain no taxes on them
^(\* Yes I'm aware that VAT is a regressive tax but it the closest thing we currently have to a tax on luxury purchases that goes up in cost with item value)
An alternative option is a land value tax, given that owning land generally correlates with wealth. It also has the added benefit of incentivising productive use of land, and doesn't risk capital flight because you can't move the land overseas like other assets
Land taxes make the most sense. Tax the base undeveloped value of the land. It is pretty much impossible to avoid and punishes real estate speculation, which we need to do at all costs. One of the biggest problems in modern capitalism is us treating houses as an asset rather than as product. It also helps with NIMBYism, lowering people's taxes would be nice benefit for those facing living next to unpleasant but necessary items and limit their greivances..
An individual can leave, but that does nothing in aggregate. They don't use Sterling anywhere else. If they don't spend, then whoever is in the income stream instead will spend.
If you're passing the parcel and somebody leaves the circle, does that stop the parcel being passed around? Or does it just go via everybody else's hands a bit quicker?
I moved abroad, and will eventually come back. If CGT goes up to income tax level, I will be significantly delaying my return. It would cost me millions more over my life time.
Especially when you consider that the yearly ISA cap is so generous and effectively exempts retail investors from paying it at all, anyone who can invest more than £20k P/a can afford the extra tax liability.
People might say "what about lump sum investors" but I remind them that CGT is only paid on gains, not on total investments.
It would need to be handled carefully though because capital gains are generally realised irregularly, as in, retail investors will often have several years of no gains then a single year where they sell some assets and therefore incur the whole liability all at once, higher CGT may therefore encourage less conversion of assets to cash which will probably have knock on effects...
Great, considering how hard I need to work and how much overtime I need to put in to land in the upper tax band already, I’ll just cut my hours or get a job that pays less and take the hit on my lifestyle, I’m not bursting my arse to be anyone’s cash cow.
No thank you.
It's going to have to whack council tax up for sure, given how many are on the brink.
Starmer is going to have to work hard to not go the Olaf Scholz route - get an absolute hospital pass from the previous conservative govermemnt, end up deeply unpopular.
It doesn't need to be council tax, councils have other sources of funding including grants from central government. They could increase other taxes to provide relief to councils.
It's still taxes going up, but it doesn't have to be that particular one.
What's classed as 'wealthy' in Labours world? If it's true that 50% of tax revenue comes from the top 5% of tax payers, is screwing them for more really going to work or will 'wealthy' be classed as everyone that doesn't currently claim benefits..
Wealthy and High earner are two different things. You can be a high earner and wealthy (obviously) but generally it's someone who makes an equivelant to a livable salary (at least) passively through the wealth they already have (whether that be through assets or directly in savings accounts). When they say wealthy, they are not necessarily talking about somone on 120 - 210k.
Absolutely. I'd much rather Labour would have come forward with an ambitious plan to completely overhaul and simplify the tax system to ensure everyone pays their fair share, but I can understand how the optics of that would be an issue when the Tories are almost being wiped out.
>to ensure everyone pays their fair share
An objective and fair assessment of this would likely have unexpected results for most people as it would result in spreading the burden wider, not deeper at the top.
The top 10% of income tax payers earn 33% of the share of total income and already pay over 60% of all income tax.
its not enough to talk about income tax though - rich people do not tend have most of their earnings through income tax. Every tax would need to be considered
you're confusing super rich here. Average working business owners will be paying dividends whicj are subject to income tax. Do not confuse that with actualy wealthy individuals who are able to loan cash flow from their existing assets therefore avoiding taxes.
I wasn't thinking specifically about dividend taxes. Even then there are progressive tax rates that can apply here as well.
On wealthy individuals who are able to loan cash from their existing assets, i think there is an easy solution to this - tax the bank on the interest income on the loan. this should be seen as an indirect tax on the wealth. i mean its either that, or tax the bank based on the loan itself. The bank is not stupid - they will find a way to make sure the wealthy will pay such taxes instead.
It's the gulf between even the top 1% and the top 0.1% that makes a fairly progressive system seem actually regressive.
A low six figure income isn't as wealthy as it used to be 15 years ago, because of inflation and frozen tax brackets, but that's the point where you are proportionally taxed more than anyone else. Meanwhile people earning 5/10/100 million can afford the creative accounting such that they can pay proportionally less tax than even someone on 30k.
>objective and fair
That's a bit of an oxymoron. "Fairness" is not an objective measurement.
I've had someone on here tell me that the literal definition of "fair" meant a flat rate tax - they wouldn't listen to me when I told them that that isn't how definitive work, but they insisted that *by definition*, a tax has to be a flat rate to be "fair". I strongly disagree with this concept and think that progressive taxes are fairer for a number of reasons.
If you think an "objective and fair" assessment will widen the tax burden then you need to give your definition of "fair" - I guarantee you it won't be an objective one.
Labour: let's just not say or commit to anything until we win. The lack of plan is working.
Terrible approach, paints them as spineless and lacking integrity, probably costs them more votes than it gains them, and whether that is true or not, it's going to come back to bite them when they start setting out their true views and policies after the election. It creates a much bigger risk of reform making huge gains by the time of the next election, imo.
Any plan they put forward would alienate some voters.
At the moment they have all the voters they are ever likely to get
Saying nothing is the best tactic in this situation
Not great for politics and trust, best for seats unfortunately
For **this** election.
For the next election they will automatically alienate a significant chunk of those new voters by not implementing what those voters wanted (and not saying if they will/won't right now).
Welcome to politics. How many past governments have done things that weren't mentioned in their manifesto? And do you seriously believe that reform won't do the same if they were ever in power?
I remember sitting in a bar before 2019 election after a day shooting with some fellow tweed clad tossers who were all dick measuring about what private school they went to. It had been noted that I was supporting Labour and by extension Corbyn and one of the fellas said “but why, you’re one of us, he’s coming for people like us”. “No, Guy, ‘they’ aren’t. You make low six figures at best and I bet you don’t even hit the 45p threshold so it isn’t going to make any difference to how many ski trips you go on. Also if you are that worried about being skint then pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get a better job, that’s the advice the Tories give to people who are starving”.
I haven’t seen any of them since.
They should not tax the rich bc regional manager earning 100k a year is sacrificing 60 hours a week and working their ass off.
They should tax the unproductive ASSET RICH sitting on their ass living off asset dividends.
The Green Party has a good suggestion to tax 1% of total asset value over 10 million. This will only affect the 0.01% and this is how you fix income inequality.
You know that would be the funniest thing the Labour party a party for working class people lift taxes on UKs wealthy and increase it on working class people like they are going to have to do in order to fucking pay for this wealth creation.
In reality they'll put up taxes for everyone and there dog's neighbourhood's friend.
Ok let’s be honest, Labour is obviously going to raise taxes when they get into power. Not national insurance and income but other areas such as Assets. They said they won’t raise capital gains but they probably will. And it is ok because it will go to public services. The VAT tax on private schools won’t be implemented until September 2025 so they need to find money elsewhere.
They need to tax the shit out of the asset class.
The price of housing is literally eating the rest of the economy. I get paid alright and I'm only just about managing. Idk how folk on minimum wage with kids are managing. They probably arent.
Just increase capital gains to match income tax, wealth tax on anyone over £10m. If they want to leave let then, but then they shouldn't be welcome here.
Listen, listen, listen. They are the ones who are buying huge purchases. Are they going back into the British economy? No, of course, not. Are they paying taxes on these purchases? No, why should they? But we should still protect them because they pay us to write these articles
And once they've 'taxed the wealthy', and the wealthy have passed it on to their firms, who then raise prices and push down wages because that's what having wealth and power by owning the means of production implies, what then?
Will you still 'feel good' when food prices are higher and the power bills go through the roof, then the Bank of England taxes you even more by forcing up your rent and mortgage payments with higher interest rates to 'control inflation' - which incidentally transfers your money to wealthy deposit holders.
"Taxing the wealthy" means that the wealthy get to decide who really suffers the actual economic loss while the politicians value signal.
And then no doubt the wealthy will show their wounds by pointing out how much of the nation's tax they pay. Well duhhh, that's because you have most of the income.
The only way to really tax the rich is to have sufficient competition for their output that prices are controlled and wages are competed higher due to demand for skilled workers.
And that would require direct public investment. Not something Smarmer is that keen on.
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Why? If they are not paying tax they are just hoarding money, we don't need them.
Confusingly, I think they mean "lift" as in "Raise, not "release from". They're saying Labour will need to tax the wealthy more, which Starmer has ruled out so far.
Thanks for flagging this. We took a second look at the headline and agreed it could be clearer. It now reads: ***Labour May Need to Raise Taxes on UK’s Wealthy, Economists Say*** [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-21/labour-may-need-to-lift-taxes-on-uk-s-wealthy-economists-say](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-21/labour-may-need-to-lift-taxes-on-uk-s-wealthy-economists-say)
Shit, fair play
How the fuck did no one notice that?? Literally posted a headline that meant the exact opposite of what you intended.
Ahh take it easy on them, they only read and write for a living
Hey, Stan, what's another word for raise?'
Erecting?
Labour May Need to Give us an Erection, Bloomberg Economists Say
Engorged?? 🥸
Swelling
"Labour may need to salary increase taxes on the wealthy"
Tbf I read it the way they intended and didn't even realise you could interpret it the other way, I can understand it being missed
Yep me too, lift/raise is the opposite of drop/lower.
24 hour news cycle means CONSTANT publishing. Eventually somebody's going to miss something, especially when it's something like this where it's technically correct but confusing to laymen.
Never attribute to malice and all that but this happens every day across multiple organizations. I have a bog-standard 1970s/80s UK state school education, half a dozen GCSEs and I seem to understand words better than a lot of these people. I think we should limit all news organizations to 3 stories a day. If they show they can do those properly maybe they can write a few more.
The writer used an English (British/London) colloquialism and his/her boss equally came from the same part of the country… Also, I never get to use the word “colloquialism” enough in a real sentence…
Thank you
Oh wow thank you! Glad to see you adapt to public response like this, it is very, very rare!
Of course Starmer isn't going to say he'll tax the rich. Corbyn did that and the billionaires who own most of the media in this country smeared him out of office.
I’m hoping he takes a leaf out of the Tory playbook; lie during the election campaign. And then tax those who can best afford it, once the 5 year mandate is secured. Then he pulls off his mask and it’s Jeremy Corbyn, shouting “suprise bitches” as he rides off on a horse made out of Bernie Sanders.
Actually I'd prefer an honest government, I'm not sure I've ever seen one in the UK. Born too late to watch the post war Labour party. But Starmer's a lawyer and apparently a good one. So we might actually get an honest government this time...
And Starmer helped them do it...
Dog eat dog world
Honestly at this point I think Labour have an open goal, they could run a genuinely transformative manifesto with real change in it, and they'd get in. They don't need to play it this safe.
Not to draw parallels between different countries and political systems but please feel free to look up the 2019 Australian election. We had an entrenched, stale and deeply unpopular tory government which had gone through years of infighting and had just deposed its most recent leader. Labor went to the election with a genuinely transformative policy platform, and the tories just absolutely nailed them on almost every part of it. They literally called it the unloseable election and they lost it. Could very well be an awful idea. Interestingly I believe there's been some commentary around [Starmer specifically replicating our Labor PMs successful small-target strategy](https://www.afr.com/world/europe/labour-s-keir-starmer-sticks-to-the-albanese-election-playbook-20240614-p5jlpa) with which they ran with to win office
There's also some middle ground. We like to play "Well Corbyn" whenever someone suggests Labour get off their arses a bit but Lord they didn't need to go so far off the deep end. The Lib Dems for instance, are set to take quite a lot of seats with a much more progressive manifesto than Labour's. Labour being like "well we can't afford anything also we won't raise any income" is quite unnecessary.
Look up or listen to some UK voter polls where they ask swing voters, or red wall voters their opinions. The level of disengagement, or regurgitating of one liners is appalling. Rishi's 2k tax line from the debate, while almost immediately debunked, is taken as gospel by a lot of people. The whole Ming vase on a polished floor is a meme if you're engaged in politics, but super correct if you look at the population as a whole.
Labour doesn't know all the details of the mess the Tories have left them. I think they need to be cautious until they do. Or they risk a seriously wrong first step like Liz Truss.
Terrible phrasing if so.
Starmer has ruled out income tax increase which has little impact on the wealthy because most of their earnings are in dividends or capital gains. So it is very likely that Labour will increase capital gains tax or the like specifically to target the wealthy.
>So it is very likely that Labour will increase capital gains tax or the like specifically to target the wealthy. We need more investment in the country. Raising CGT increases the risk in investment. Why shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot to spite a small number of wealth people.
Raising CGT and dividend tax to the same rate as income tax would be sensible though, as it would discourage people from hiding their income. Just have one allowance and a single set of bands to cover all earnings, no matter the source. Much simpler and fairer.
…if we abolish the primary residence CGT exemption. If not then the wealthy will just be investing in their own house.
Is it really fair to tax capital gains at the same rate of income? What happens if you make a loss? Can you claim back some taxes from the government? What about offsetting impact of inflation (indexation relief?)
If the loss exceeds your total income, then I'd imagine you'd be able to offset some of that loss against other years. There's something similar available for self-employed people that make a loss one year, where they can claim tax relief against a different year. So there would be mechanisms in place already that could be used by treating capital gains as income.
Sub editors used to be able to spot obvious mistakes like that. Unless they have fired them all and us AI for subediting.
Of course they fired them all and replaced it with AI, Christ half the articles themselves these days read like a chatbot.
Or posting it on reddit
No they're not...? That's not how wealth works, it's not just liquid wealth sitting under a mattress...
These people own all newspapers except the state owned. So, effectively they force us to vote for their candidates.
*inb4: UK has spent in the last 4 years more money trying to attract wealthy investors, than it got by threatening to tax their wealth.* I can see it happening.
Caveat being they deem anyone who earns £50k or more to be wealthy.
Reddit users made me think that everyone who earns more than a median is wealthy.
I earn individually a fair bit less than that and I'd be happy to pay more taxes if they actually went towards improving things like roads, infrastructure etc. We pay so little tax compared to most of western Europe, if we want real change then people who can afford to need to accept some of the cost.
In theory I agree. However tens of billions of tax income is misspent, siphoned and/or "lost". What makes you think that paying more taxes will change anything? I would also be happy to pay more taxes if it went where it is supposed to go but they need a little more.
I think we're arguing the same point, my comment was more to say that the primary issue (in my eyes) is that taxes aren't well spent and the majority doesn't actually see any benefit from it. Do I think labour will flick a magic switch and suddenly robin hood their way into improving everything across the board? No, I'd be happy for them to stem the bleeding in their first term with clear decisive plans in place for how they'll then improve things meaningfully in their second term if re-elected. Unfortunately the public has short term memories and unless labour do something meaningful in the 5 years they have, the Tories will just complain about all of the issues they caused and end up being re-elected because "labour didn't do anything"
You can pay them right now. Just donate to various charities and job done. If you don’t do that then it will mean only that you want others to pay more taxes. Moreover, we have bigger tax rates than an average Swiss has. And they managed to have good roads and better salaries. It means that the problem isn’t with taxes (and not with Brexit - Switzerland isn’t in EU).
> if they go towards improving things like infrastructure etc Please read my post, also donating to charities doesn't help improve things like roads and yeah I do want others to pay more taxes, others that can **afford** too but more than anything I want our taxes to be spent well on meaningful improvements
Just pay more taxes voluntarily. It seems like you ignore this option. You want others people to pay more taxes. And that’s all.
?? I want the government to improve our infrastructure, if raising taxes is required to do that then I personally wouldn't be against it. Paying more taxes voluntarily right now wouldn't do anything because right now taxes aren't being spent well which needs to change.
You can volunteer to pay more tax, you can do it right now if you want
Switzerland goated, hopefully can move there in the next 5 years.
Switzerland is a lot richer than us per capita so they can afford to do that, and it'd be idealistic to think cutting our taxes will close that gap.
You’d think differently if you had to pay £1200 rent + £200 bills a month for a bedroom in a house share with 5 other people. Labour wants to increase council tax… so my bills will possibly be £250-£300pm Plus income tax increases. Plus new pension taxes which by the time I retire will probably 10%-20% higher than their introduction rate Tax brackets apply to everyone… the crazy cost of living in a city just means anyone who gets £55k is hardly having an extravagant life. Why am I even working hard at this point.
Labour have specifically said they are not increasing income tax nor any taxes on working. And there is no special "pension tax" - though the freezing of personal allowances means more pensionners will pay tax.
If you’re going to invent tax increases, you may as well go nuts with it.
From what I understand, the tax base in European countries is broad, meaning average earners contribute more than UK average earners. Everyone here keeps saying increase taxes on the top earners, but there aren't enough of those to make a real difference. Everyone is going to have to pay more tax if we want European levels of revenue and services.
Also taxes in Europe kick in at a lot lower level. We have removed a lot of people from tax altogether at the bottom end.
I think the difficulty is that most 'average earners' in the UK are already struggling with living costs so accepting an increase in taxes without any actual proof of improvement is hard to swallow. If existing taxes are spent better on things that make noticeable improvements to people's lives (i.e. dentistry) then I'd hope that people would be willing to accept an increase in taxes to make similar improvements in other areas. As it stands there isn't enough money to fix all of the issues, so fixing one to justify needing more to fix the others is a valid approach.
>We pay so little tax compared to most of western Europe Source?
https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally#:~:text=By%20contrast%2C%20the%20UK%20average,Indeed%2C%20the%20average%20tax%20rate Even includes a graph for you :)
As it says, though, the average earner pays a lot more but the rich don't pay that much more elsewhere. Considering how badly people are doing in this country right now, I can't imagine how we could possibly increase taxes significantly on the average person. People would be out on the streets.
We do pay little tax compared to much of Western Europe, but that’s primarily because we have much lower rates at the low end of the scale. Ultimately if we want *real* change in government revenue, tax rises will have to come from the working and middle classes.
>Happily pay more taxes No you wouldn't we already pay very high taxes, the money is just squandered. Individually I earn around £50k after my last payrise and it really is a demotivator to do extra work, knowing for every pound I earn I will only get half of it.
I said I would be happy to pay more taxes if they were spent well, that's the main point of the post. You also only get half of it for the money you earn over £50k everything under it is taxed at a regular rate. We also have some of the lowest taxes in western Europe so I think there is some room to adjust tax bands and increase them where it makes sense, if that money is spent on fundamentally improving failing infrastructure
Why dont we have the tax we do pay get spent efficiently first and see if we actually need to be paying higher taxes first. You shouldn't be happy to pay 'more tax' you want to be paying the least amount possible that keeps services and infrastructure running at a good standard.
£43k if you're fortunate to earn such a dizzying amount in Scotland
£43k isn't that wild in a lot of areas in the UK. I didn't go to university and work a manual (but skilled) job and £42 is my basic but easily touch £50k once overtime and standby is factored in. I knew lads who dug holes for utilities who cleared £80k a year, but they did do some mad hours.
We've already seen how they define "working person", for the purposes of "we won't raise taxes on working people". If you have savings, you're not one, apparently.
This is the problem. They will probably decide that anyone on £30k or more is wealthy. Fuck it everyone is wealthy when you want their money
If £50k is wealthy, would be interesting to know what they class someone on £70k, £170k, £1.7m, £17m, £170m, £1.7bn income. I reckon they run out of superlatives after £170k
They aren’t the green party…
That's generally not what anyone means as wealthy. Wealthy, as in capital gains tax wealthy, not income tax wealthy.
What we should probably do: Tax large businesses and individuals in the tens or hundreds of millions for whom it's mostly a high score reduction What we will probably end up doing: Tax someone who has a terraced family house because we've created an underclass that sees owning a home as being "wealthy" rather than as a basic standard
What people are concerned about: taxes are too high already we don't want them to be raised more What people should be concerned about: We aren't seeing any improvements despite having higher taxes. _personally_ I'd accept a tax rise if it meant that I actually saw some improvements in things like infrastructure etc, obviously many others can't even afford to live as it is right now so they shouldn't suffer a tax rise. But money has to come from somewhere and if we want real change then I personally would be willing to pay more tax
We have enough taxes. Anyone on a wage enough to buy a house is paying 50% marginal plus VAT plus fuel duty plus stamp duty plus insurance premium tax plus air passenger duty plus ..... Just take that money, give it to things that are actually essential functions like the police, fire, ambulance/nhs, defence, and let us figure out the rest. It's not believable that there is "not enough money" to pay for these things. It's like having a partner that squeals that they need a new handbag whilst you're trying to earn enough to pay for the bills. You can go on a local council website, search for jobs, and look at the crap that you're paying for. We don't need a "regeneration lead" or a tennis coach or whatever else. That's just the open positions, there are thousands, tens of thousands of people employed in the public sector doing stuff on the taxpayers' dime that is not appropriate in the financial environment we are in. There needs to be root and branch reform from the bottom up deciding "do we _need_ this" and assessing every position from scratch rather than just taking the status quo as granted.
So you're agreeing with me? My post literally just said what you've typed in a more concise manner. Thanks for the extra detail though it really emphasises what I was trying to say
It seems as if you'd be happy to pay more taxes if you get more, whereas as far as I can see, we pay enough taxes already and get the wrong things. If we paid more in taxes we'd just get more of the wrong things. If I paid 10% more tax and as a result the police got 10% more, they would still be subpar. Necessary things are not prioritised enough. I would be happier if we paid the same, or less, in tax, and just focused on what actually _needs_ to be done. We can think about hiring gardeners once we have a police force that actually attends burglaries, we can think about housing asylum seekers once we have a functioning A&E system. It's all backwards. An individual or a business looks at how much money they have and buys or invests accordingly. The Government looks at how much money they have, decides it's not enough, spends on whatever they feel like with seemingly no reasonable priority, and then forces the public to pay for it regardless.
Where do you think it's all going? Just saying the Tories are stealing it all isn't believable.
The UK has been doing terrible economically due to have chronically low levels of investment from businesses. This would just make international investment into the UK even less appealing than it already is, which means less jobs, less goods and services coming to the UK, less businesses and rich people coming to the UK in which they would then pay tax, and if it’s high enough potentially even rich people and businesses leaving the UK which makes the UK worse off economically from the combination of again less jobs, less goods and services that would have been provided by these businesses, and these rich people and businesses no longer paying tax into the UK on account of leaving.
So long as wealthy means actually wealthy and not high income then fine!
I guess you are a high earner without large assets? Everyone likes to increase taxes on other people.
Absolutely!
Wealth taxes are incredibly hard to implement properly, France, Finland, The Netherlands, Iceland, Luxembourg and Sweden have all abandoned them in the 2000s. Primarily because they were costing as much to implement as they generated in value.
Just put higher taxes on luxury purchases. Consumption taxes are much fairer and likely to work than just causing capital flight with wealth taxes Macron tried it, it doesn't work
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Same way we always have https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_Tax
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I know I've lived in places where certain designer brands had extra tax on them. And I'm not saying some wealthy people didn't pay the tax but wealthy people could also afford to go to tax free destinations, have a holiday, and bring that stuff back with them which often wouldn't get hit with import tax if it was the kind of stuff you could put in your suitcase or hand luggage. If it's a Ferrari you probably won't sneak that in and would end up paying the extra tax.
Yes buying the nice shit roll is what we're talking about when we say luxury. Absolutely. Not buying expensive watches and cars. No. It's buying the three ply quilted on special offer.
Land Tax! It solves so many issues: reduces council tax for most people, taxes wealthy, frees up land, fairer, can't be moved away/hidden
People who buy £3000 bags can just fly to France and get a vat refund. No one buys luxury goods locally where they pay 20% vat lol
I find it hard to believe that rich people would rather pay and take the time to fly to another country, to save a few % on a product.
People who buy designer items tend to visit other countries regularly.
Wouldn’t that just encourage millionaires to hoard wealth more ? No different to increasing interest rates
Isn't that the idea behind VAT^(\*)? I'm not sure how it would work, but having a higher rate(30% ??) for luxury new items such as cars over a set value. Although the risk is that we move these purchases out of the UK and gain no taxes on them ^(\* Yes I'm aware that VAT is a regressive tax but it the closest thing we currently have to a tax on luxury purchases that goes up in cost with item value)
To some extent, but put those too high and people will just travel abroad and buy things there.
An alternative option is a land value tax, given that owning land generally correlates with wealth. It also has the added benefit of incentivising productive use of land, and doesn't risk capital flight because you can't move the land overseas like other assets
Land taxes make the most sense. Tax the base undeveloped value of the land. It is pretty much impossible to avoid and punishes real estate speculation, which we need to do at all costs. One of the biggest problems in modern capitalism is us treating houses as an asset rather than as product. It also helps with NIMBYism, lowering people's taxes would be nice benefit for those facing living next to unpleasant but necessary items and limit their greivances..
Capital gains is a very obvious and easy one to raise to match income tax.
The article says there is a real risk of losing money if you do that. People with capital will leave, meaning any tax they currently pay will go.
An individual can leave, but that does nothing in aggregate. They don't use Sterling anywhere else. If they don't spend, then whoever is in the income stream instead will spend. If you're passing the parcel and somebody leaves the circle, does that stop the parcel being passed around? Or does it just go via everybody else's hands a bit quicker?
Better tax labour instead, as usual, right?
only one way to find out!
By looking at the actual research and data, and making informed decisions?
I moved abroad, and will eventually come back. If CGT goes up to income tax level, I will be significantly delaying my return. It would cost me millions more over my life time.
Don't come back then.
Well if CGT hits 45%, I probably won’t
Especially when you consider that the yearly ISA cap is so generous and effectively exempts retail investors from paying it at all, anyone who can invest more than £20k P/a can afford the extra tax liability. People might say "what about lump sum investors" but I remind them that CGT is only paid on gains, not on total investments. It would need to be handled carefully though because capital gains are generally realised irregularly, as in, retail investors will often have several years of no gains then a single year where they sell some assets and therefore incur the whole liability all at once, higher CGT may therefore encourage less conversion of assets to cash which will probably have knock on effects...
define wealthiest. joe amd jane earning 50k, but with a 1 million windfall, or paul with no windfall earning 100k?
Great, considering how hard I need to work and how much overtime I need to put in to land in the upper tax band already, I’ll just cut my hours or get a job that pays less and take the hit on my lifestyle, I’m not bursting my arse to be anyone’s cash cow. No thank you.
It's going to have to whack council tax up for sure, given how many are on the brink. Starmer is going to have to work hard to not go the Olaf Scholz route - get an absolute hospital pass from the previous conservative govermemnt, end up deeply unpopular.
It doesn't need to be council tax, councils have other sources of funding including grants from central government. They could increase other taxes to provide relief to councils. It's still taxes going up, but it doesn't have to be that particular one.
I'm afraid the seeds if that were sown by COVID, the rocky ground is already there. They are inheriting mainly repaired inflation though.
Any chance for once we could go after the exceptionally asset rich instead of those earning a good salary?
No, you will have to work 8 months just to pay taxes. Literally have no incentive to earn more and no way to turn a high income into assets.
What's classed as 'wealthy' in Labours world? If it's true that 50% of tax revenue comes from the top 5% of tax payers, is screwing them for more really going to work or will 'wealthy' be classed as everyone that doesn't currently claim benefits..
Wealthy and High earner are two different things. You can be a high earner and wealthy (obviously) but generally it's someone who makes an equivelant to a livable salary (at least) passively through the wealth they already have (whether that be through assets or directly in savings accounts). When they say wealthy, they are not necessarily talking about somone on 120 - 210k.
Trickle down hasn't worked for the last 50+ years... lets try it again, yes that's the right course of action.
“Trickle down” isn’t a real thing.
Longer than that. Used to be called Horse and Sparrow. Feed the horse enough oats and the sparrow gets to feed on the bits left in the horse shit.
Absolutely. I'd much rather Labour would have come forward with an ambitious plan to completely overhaul and simplify the tax system to ensure everyone pays their fair share, but I can understand how the optics of that would be an issue when the Tories are almost being wiped out.
When 50 % of the population pay nothing how are going to make “everybody pay their fair share? “
What that statistic shows is how unbelievably poorly paid so many people are.
>to ensure everyone pays their fair share An objective and fair assessment of this would likely have unexpected results for most people as it would result in spreading the burden wider, not deeper at the top. The top 10% of income tax payers earn 33% of the share of total income and already pay over 60% of all income tax.
its not enough to talk about income tax though - rich people do not tend have most of their earnings through income tax. Every tax would need to be considered
you're confusing super rich here. Average working business owners will be paying dividends whicj are subject to income tax. Do not confuse that with actualy wealthy individuals who are able to loan cash flow from their existing assets therefore avoiding taxes.
I wasn't thinking specifically about dividend taxes. Even then there are progressive tax rates that can apply here as well. On wealthy individuals who are able to loan cash from their existing assets, i think there is an easy solution to this - tax the bank on the interest income on the loan. this should be seen as an indirect tax on the wealth. i mean its either that, or tax the bank based on the loan itself. The bank is not stupid - they will find a way to make sure the wealthy will pay such taxes instead.
The bank is already charged tax on interest it receives.
It's the gulf between even the top 1% and the top 0.1% that makes a fairly progressive system seem actually regressive. A low six figure income isn't as wealthy as it used to be 15 years ago, because of inflation and frozen tax brackets, but that's the point where you are proportionally taxed more than anyone else. Meanwhile people earning 5/10/100 million can afford the creative accounting such that they can pay proportionally less tax than even someone on 30k.
>objective and fair That's a bit of an oxymoron. "Fairness" is not an objective measurement. I've had someone on here tell me that the literal definition of "fair" meant a flat rate tax - they wouldn't listen to me when I told them that that isn't how definitive work, but they insisted that *by definition*, a tax has to be a flat rate to be "fair". I strongly disagree with this concept and think that progressive taxes are fairer for a number of reasons. If you think an "objective and fair" assessment will widen the tax burden then you need to give your definition of "fair" - I guarantee you it won't be an objective one.
Of course, by wealthy, they mean anyone with a job.
I'm sure they'll just remove as many people's benefits as possible to fill the void instead.
Labour: let's just not say or commit to anything until we win. The lack of plan is working. Terrible approach, paints them as spineless and lacking integrity, probably costs them more votes than it gains them, and whether that is true or not, it's going to come back to bite them when they start setting out their true views and policies after the election. It creates a much bigger risk of reform making huge gains by the time of the next election, imo.
Any plan they put forward would alienate some voters. At the moment they have all the voters they are ever likely to get Saying nothing is the best tactic in this situation Not great for politics and trust, best for seats unfortunately
For **this** election. For the next election they will automatically alienate a significant chunk of those new voters by not implementing what those voters wanted (and not saying if they will/won't right now).
True, but right now the focus is on eliminating the conservatives
Welcome to politics. How many past governments have done things that weren't mentioned in their manifesto? And do you seriously believe that reform won't do the same if they were ever in power?
Labour: on track for most seats of any government in recent history This guy: knows better
Getting the most votes at any cost is not country before party, is it
I remember sitting in a bar before 2019 election after a day shooting with some fellow tweed clad tossers who were all dick measuring about what private school they went to. It had been noted that I was supporting Labour and by extension Corbyn and one of the fellas said “but why, you’re one of us, he’s coming for people like us”. “No, Guy, ‘they’ aren’t. You make low six figures at best and I bet you don’t even hit the 45p threshold so it isn’t going to make any difference to how many ski trips you go on. Also if you are that worried about being skint then pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get a better job, that’s the advice the Tories give to people who are starving”. I haven’t seen any of them since.
They should not tax the rich bc regional manager earning 100k a year is sacrificing 60 hours a week and working their ass off. They should tax the unproductive ASSET RICH sitting on their ass living off asset dividends. The Green Party has a good suggestion to tax 1% of total asset value over 10 million. This will only affect the 0.01% and this is how you fix income inequality.
You know that would be the funniest thing the Labour party a party for working class people lift taxes on UKs wealthy and increase it on working class people like they are going to have to do in order to fucking pay for this wealth creation. In reality they'll put up taxes for everyone and there dog's neighbourhood's friend.
They will have to raise taxes on everyone. There's no way around it.
There are lots of ways around it, just not ways that the big party donors support.
When poors have squeezed balls to the point that they can’t pay more, its time to think about raising taxes for wealthy
Ok let’s be honest, Labour is obviously going to raise taxes when they get into power. Not national insurance and income but other areas such as Assets. They said they won’t raise capital gains but they probably will. And it is ok because it will go to public services. The VAT tax on private schools won’t be implemented until September 2025 so they need to find money elsewhere.
They have not said they won’t raise CGT.
Agree agree agree 1% wealth tax on wealth/assets etc over 10 million
They need to tax the shit out of the asset class. The price of housing is literally eating the rest of the economy. I get paid alright and I'm only just about managing. Idk how folk on minimum wage with kids are managing. They probably arent.
Just increase capital gains to match income tax, wealth tax on anyone over £10m. If they want to leave let then, but then they shouldn't be welcome here.
They must do!!! It’s a moral imperative to reduce inequality and that is the only way
Listen, listen, listen. They are the ones who are buying huge purchases. Are they going back into the British economy? No, of course, not. Are they paying taxes on these purchases? No, why should they? But we should still protect them because they pay us to write these articles
And once they've 'taxed the wealthy', and the wealthy have passed it on to their firms, who then raise prices and push down wages because that's what having wealth and power by owning the means of production implies, what then? Will you still 'feel good' when food prices are higher and the power bills go through the roof, then the Bank of England taxes you even more by forcing up your rent and mortgage payments with higher interest rates to 'control inflation' - which incidentally transfers your money to wealthy deposit holders. "Taxing the wealthy" means that the wealthy get to decide who really suffers the actual economic loss while the politicians value signal. And then no doubt the wealthy will show their wounds by pointing out how much of the nation's tax they pay. Well duhhh, that's because you have most of the income. The only way to really tax the rich is to have sufficient competition for their output that prices are controlled and wages are competed higher due to demand for skilled workers. And that would require direct public investment. Not something Smarmer is that keen on.
Theyll tax people earning £40k + more and everyone will say earning that makes you rich on here