zlacker

>>fortra+(OP)
The British government closed this loophole because it's politically easier than the strategy which is actually needed: properly taxing assets.

This is much harder to evade - if you own most of Mayfair, you can't just move your assets elsewhere - they are very clearly tied to the location.

Of course, this would mean taxing powerful aristocrats, including the royal family. With their large majority, the British government had the opportunity to do this, but decided to take an easier path. The reason why this path was easier is now becoming clear to them.

>>bashto+T2
As you pay more tax, you get less services, and I dont just mean, where you elect to avoid them. You get less (or none at this point) free childcare. No umemployment benefits if you get fired. No child benefit. You can't save as much in your pension.

Then there are the semi-elective things like healthcare, education, home security. These kinda dont work for the whole society. The rich are thus paying for their own out of pocket. But they are also paying for the semi-working system for everyone else.

I think introducing a wealth tax just to balance the books without rethinking who and how accesses public funds, will just end with the rich leaving. Some may say good riddance, but the UK budget is now beyond creaking and heading for collapse.

Oh and when I say "the rich", that probably covers many people here. IIRC earning 90k per year puts you in the top 1%. A 10-15 year experience NHS doctor is in that bracket.

>>rich_s+fO
People earning 90k aren’t “the rich” that are doing the most egregious tax avoidance. They’re still working class. They still have to work or face destitution.

The very top sliver who own the majority of the land and assets and who never need to work a day in their life are who must be looked at; that hereditary wealth needs to begin to find itself flowing into public services more and more.

>>newdee+YQ
Of course this will be an unpopular comment, but when it comes to things like this .. have you ever simply looked up the total net worth of all billionaires in the UK, and divided it by the total number of people living in the UK? Like .. you need to do one single division between two numbers to prove that your idea of just "seizing and redistributing the rich people's wealth" will accomplish nothing you think it will. A single division is all it takes.

>>thegri+JI1
Really? Because 50% of the UK wealth is in the hands of billionaires. So everyone in the country would suddenly be twice as wealthy (excluding the billionaires of course).

Perhaps you should check the facts before making statements like that!

>>Reflec+kG2
In the times of AI it's really easy to verify the question above. I had literally just copied it to the chat and made a research (also asked to cite and manually verified the links).

So it says there are 57 billionaires in UK with total worth of £182 billion. Non-billionaire wealth is £10.13 trillion, btw, so it's definitively not 50%. UK population is 68.3 million people. So everyone gets their £11,311 and that's it.

UPDATE there are £772.8 billions if you include non-UK citizens, but happen to live here. If you seize their money as well that will give you the total of £11K

>>splix+2M2
It’s a straw man cause you don’t have a windfall redistribution as only option