Tax wealth not income

Money_Saving_Dude

oldvicar wrote: »

But I'll be gubbered if I will vote for someone who wants to turf me out of my lovely home which I worked a lifetime for, and can now barely afford to heat on my "meagre pension". The state can have it when I'm finished with it, not before.

It's easy to resolve this. Put a charge on a property for those who cannot afford to pay ('asset rich, cash poor') to cover the tax so it can be recouped from the estate on death.

jamesd

Agreed. Inheritance tax is the perfect place for such taxes because that doesn't harm the living person in any way., they still get to keep and use all of their money for living expenses if necessary.

opinions4u

Article in Daily Mail.

Background on Civitas and who / what they are

Well worth a read. Different people with different political persuasions will doubtless draw different conclusions, but the data within the article appears to be accurate and is relevant to the thread.

Me? I still think we need to look closer at what government considers it needs to spend money on before we get round to "simplifying" the system. Taxing people and then giving them benefits back seems a bit wasteful!

le_loup

Mandelbrot wrote: »

So if I rent my £10M mansion from my company,

The company would pay. That's the glorious ease of this type of arrangement ... you can't move houses!

jamesd

opinions4u, the numbers are right - consistent with the past HMRC figures I've mentioned before - but under-state the true amount of tax paid. There are also higher stamp duty rates and more VAT on spending by those who are better off.

What's interesting is that when I've asked people whether the well off x% should pay y% or more or less of tax people have tended to accept lower figures than the real ones as being the fair one. Lots of room for education about the tax split and how it works.

pqrdef

I'm confused. Who pays this mansion tax, owners or occupiers?

Koicarp

Why not just do away with income tax and bring in a consumption tax, perhaps call it VAT and set it at 35% or something. Exempt water (and guinness), this way we tax those who spend rather than those who save.

Arthurian

Instead of taxing wealth, why don't we stop flinging taxpayers' money at the rich man's plaything, the Arts Council? The Arts Council (aka the taxpayer) will spend £1.4 billion between 2011 and 2015 on such things as paintings and opera. I think, if things are so dire we must have QE as an emergency measure, then we should forego the luxury of buying new art, or funding a bunch of jugglers and acrobats to clutter up the local park http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/funded-projects/case-studies/nofit-state-circus-become-national-portfolio-organisation/ .

If some wealthy people want a painting, let them buy it, but don't take any money from the taxpayer on the pretext that "it feeds the soul." Doesn't go down well when more and more people can't afford the petrol to go and see it, or can't remember when they could last afford a joint of red meat.

getmore4less

le_loup wrote: »

but wealth taxes work in other countries, should they not be considered here?

Where does it work?

what sort of rate is the tax.

I looked at switzerland(was looking at moving with work) it sort of works there because it is optional for the very wealthy, they have a church tax as well.

ed123_2

.....maybe bring back the window tax or perhaps a tax on the air we breath which would be tricky to avoid. Perhaps they should look at how they spend our money now:- invading various countries, aircraft-carriers with no aircraft, buying insolvent banks, borrowing money to give to India, China etc