I have been Listening to Gary Stevenson recently and he argues that no matter who comes into power they will fail unless they stop the mega asset rich hoovering up all the cash and assets. He uses Rishi Sunak`s family as an example. They have say, 700 million in assets, If they get 3% interest a year that’s 21 million of passive income or 400K per week. They cant spend that much a week so just reinvest it in there asset pots and taking even more. He suggests putting a 10% Tax on the passive so that some of that money doesn’t end up in a foreign bank account but recirculates through our country.
How much money does one person or Company need before it becomes too much, Is there a limit? Microsoft was once seen as a monopoly and was split up.
There is a dichotomy to this as you want the best and brightest in the country to succeed but at the same time you don’t want just a handful that end up with everything?
Gary Stevenson’s is strongly aligned with the political left and an active campaigner for wealth taxes, so it’s little wonder he thinks they’re the only viable way forward.
The idea that “you don’t want just a handful that end up with everything” proceeds from an assumption that the economy is a zero sum, i.e. like a cake, the more I eat the less there is for you. A thriving economy grows, so is not zero sum.
I dislike the idea of some apparatchik deciding how much wealth is “too much”, in order that they can confiscate and redistribute the rest. As Thomas Sowell famously puts it, what is your fair share of what someone else has worked for? To me it seems fundamentally unjust and punitive. Punitive taxation disincentivises or drives away the very people who create wealth, making everyone poorer.
And this says nothing of the practical problems. By definition asset wealth is relatively illiquid. It’s likely that Sunak’s family does not have liquid cash to cover your 10% wealth tax. Must they sell their assets to pay the taxes? It starts to look rather confiscatory, which is precisely what I believe it is intended to be. What do we tax when they’ve sold their assets, or moved them all out of the UK?
All boats rise on the tide. Let’s generate wealth, not simply confiscate it. While we’re at it, let’s get serious about the insane levels of money our government wastes every year, so we don’t have to turn to ever higher taxation in the first place.
Wealth taxes are highly punitive and increasingly shown to be ineffective, and especially so in today’s world where both people and their wealth can easily move around the globe to more tax-attractive destinations.
A Tax Foundation analysis from 2014 found that the effect of a potential version of Piketty’s wealth tax on the U.S. economy, even with a EUR 200,000 exemption, would be devastating. Over a 10-year period, wages would be 5.2 percent lower, 1.12 million jobs would be lost, the capital stock would be 16.5 percent lower than otherwise, and the overall economy would have 6.1 percent less output than the status quo, resulting in a loss of USD 1 trillion (EUR 0.92 trillion). Additionally, the revenue generated by the new tax, accounting for the GDP decline, would amount to only USD 63 billion (EUR 58 billion).
Gary is a self-promoting narcissist who likes to constantly remind viewers that he’s a millionaire and “the best f*cking trader in the world”. His tax-the-rich policy proposal seems to be borne out of pursuing an ideology of tax “justice” as opposed to achievable tax revenue.
Thinking of it from a point of view of achievable tax revenue would force you to consider what is fair and progressive, but without it being punitive.
His policy rests on the assumption that any increased tax revenue will be well spent by government. He’s effectively advocating for bigger government as a solution to society’s ills without considering the validity of that.
interesting point, but do they spend any of it in the UK? do they employ people? do they pay VAT on purchases? do they pay CGT on profits’ Do their companies pay corporation tax? Di they say income tax already?
If all the countries of the world had exactly the same rules, such a system could have some effect, but any sensible millionaire would be on the next plane out, in which case the tax take from them would be zero
