we agree that risks should come with rewards. You think the reward should be obscene billions wealth, AND very low tax? And if not both, this may stop billionaires looks to create more billions?
Surely a better incentive could be grants to help those businesses that take risks, paid for by the tax from already successful billionaires? Or are those companies not worth putting grants into? You see the issue here? Arguing that tax should be low else risk takers may not take risks and those job cresting companies don't get formed, is the ignoring all the other opportunities the tax could have been used to fund new companies that would also create jobs.
It has to be balanced and competitive with the global landscape. We already suffer with very significant amounts of underinvestment. That’s not an argument to say have low taxes on billionaires. It has to be competitive with other nations. It would require all of the major economies, at least the G20 to synchronise on tax (and also prevent tax haven operations) which will take some doing.
When it comes to normal people making investments and taking a risk with their money they should be incentivised to do that. It’s a positive contribution to society but has great risk to that individual.
What happened to people that had shares in companies like Theranos? Let alone shares in most companies when there's a stock market 'crash'.
What happens to a lot of the money people may have used to found the 20% of small businesses that fail in the 1st year and the 60% that fold in three in the UK?
Going by HSBC's numbers only 36% of the adult populace of the UK has investments and of that only 40% have it in stocks (so 14.4%...), we already don't invest as is and frankly why bother when you can just buy a house and t he government will do everything they can to ensure it's value always rises.
Also no doubt that a massive proportion of those stock investments will be mostly in foreign companies as well, Brits don't want to invest in Britain they just want to keep it the same, forever.
It has to be balanced and competitive with the global landscape. We already suffer with very significant amounts of underinvestment. That’s not an argument to say have low taxes on billionaires. It has to be competitive with other nations. It would require all of the major economies, at least the G20 to synchronise on tax (and also prevent tax haven operations) which will take some doing.
When it comes to normal people making investments and taking a risk with their money they should be incentivised to do that. It’s a positive contribution to society but has great risk to that individual.
exactly. i agree, there needs to be a balance, and in my view, it is currently unbalanced. not significantly, but enough that like what was said in the opening post, i can see people saying, if billionaires don't pay tax, why should i.
Going by HSBC's numbers only 36% of the adult populace of the UK has investments and of that only 40% have it in stocks (so 14.4%...), we already don't invest as is and frankly why bother when you can just buy a house and t he government will do everything they can to ensure it's value always rises.
Also no doubt that a massive proportion of those stock investments will be mostly in foreign companies as well, Brits don't want to invest in Britain they just want to keep it the same, forever.
Are you really comparing money earned working an hourly job Vs people with wealt simply investing, sitting back, and doing nothing, and thinking that yes, the people who work are the ones who need to pay for the benefits of society, it is truly the investors who are already wealthy who need the income break.
Are you really comparing money earned working an hourly job Vs people with wealt simply investing, sitting back, and doing nothing, and thinking that yes, the people who work are the ones who need to pay for the benefits of society, it is truly the investors who are already wealthy who need the income break.
There has to be a balance of risk vs reward here. I would go further to say they we will become poorer as a nation and as individuals if we did disincentivise investing.
I would have said it’s because we decimated our manufacturing base. Have very few homegrown companies that are still owned by a British entity. And when we do get a new start up company, we sell it as quickly as possible to a foreign investor for cheap.
We have all these large companies that are owned by foreign investors who take the profit from those companies and well it gets taxed when it gets to the investors own country.
I remember someone in the HS2 thread mentioning that rail travel in Europe is partially subsidised by the profits those companies make here in the UK. Madness.
I don’t know if any government has tried to foster a culture of starting new companies in the uk and keeping them British owned or even improving our manufacturing base but it would go along way to helping with the north south divide. As well as raising the much need tax revenue that is being discussed
IMO the wealth tax argument always seems to come from a place jealousy hidden under the guise of “fair share”. A vague, meaningless term. I don’t see why people in the UK want it so badly. Do we even have that many billionaires? Genuine question how many do we have? Don’t most of those mega wealthy live in USA, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, etc… countries that have international mega corps that own everything. Does such a company exist in the UK?
I suspect that an actual wealth tax in the UK would not meaningfully move the needle on tax revenue.
Edit: a quick check comes up with billionaires in the uk collectively being worth around 165 billion usd (rough mental arithmetic) or 146 billion GBP. A 2% wealth tax would raise £2.92 billion.
The UKs tax revenue for 2022/2023 is 786 billion. That is less than a 1% increase.
According to the ONS for the period between april 2018 and march 2020 -
"The wealthiest 10% of households held 43% of all the wealth in Great Britain in the latest period; in comparison the bottom 50% held only 9%."
Furthermore ...
"The richest 1% of households were those whose total wealth was more than £3.6 million (Figure 2). The least wealthy 10% of households had wealth of £15,400 or less."
In this group at least half only held wealth in physical assets (with a mean value of £8,000) and almost half held more financial debt than they did financial assets.
Clearly there is a major issue in the UK with wealth inequality. I mean just let it sink in for a moment... 50% of households in the UK only hold 9% of the total wealth.
It would seem to mesh quite nicely with what @jeffk was suggesting... That rewarding "passive income generation" over that of "active work by individuals" has resulted in a society where the majority are not being adequately rewarded for their efforts, in comparison to the "passive income generation" of the wealthy.
: a quick check comes up with billionaires in the uk collectively being worth around 165 billion usd (rough mental arithmetic) or 146 billion GBP. A 2% wealth tax would raise £2.92 billion
3 billion a year is not an insignificant amount if it's used to say fund start ups/companies that are looking to invest in themsevles and have a turnover below a certain amount .
I don't get the argument that when people suggest that being a billionaire (and especially multi) is perhaps not great for society, that equates to a world where no one invests in an idea due to 'risk'.
There's nothing stopping people having a very, very nice life while not hoarding vast amounts of wealth and doing billionaire things that are frankly ridiculous. See Bezos and his 'yachts'.
I'd like to see a world where more (I CBA nor am I qualified to think about the actual levels, just in principle) of the wealth generated by massive corporations is distributed to those at the front line. That is still compatible with the owners controlling the company and probably still earning the majority of the wealth.
3 billion a year is not an insignificant amount if it's used to say fund start ups/companies that are looking to invest in themsevles and have a turnover below a certain amount .
That sort of money would disappear in a series of rounding errors when we are talking about the vast sums of money at play for running a country.
Unless that money was specifically earmarked and set aside for investing in companies it would probably get lost as loose change down the back of the sofa.
Regardless, what stopping us doing that with the taxes the government already collects? If that is a serious suggest why wait till a wealth tax has been implemented.
There's nothing stopping people having a very, very nice life while not hoarding vast amounts of wealth and doing billionaire things that are frankly ridiculous. See Bezos and his 'yachts'.
By hoarding do you mean that there are companies that take money from the working man’s pockets and keep it in their own pockets when they could reinvest it and get the money circulating in the economy?
Amazon has $64 billion in actual cash. That is money they have actually taken from people and companies that has not been spent.
Amazon’s market cap is $1.3 trillion and Bezos net worth is $165 billion.
So where does this extra value come from that they are hoarding?
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
