WHAT happened to the Wealth Tax Commission? Most people have never heard of it and yet its report, if implemented, would completely transform the UK financial landscape.
With a view to helping the country recover from the economic impact of Covid, and with the support of UK Government funding, a group of experts at the London School of Economics set up the Wealth Tax Commission. They consulted far and wide with tax experts across the world and with the top brass at HMRC.
The final report was published on December 9 2020 at an event hosted by the LSE. It’s published on the internet. The main proposal was for the introduction of a one-off wealth tax payable on all individual wealth above £500,000 and charged at 1% a year for five years. Then it would stop.
READ MORE: Why has the Scottish Government failed to reform council tax?
Over these five years, allowing for administrative costs and 10% non-compliance, we would raise £260 billion (no, not a misprint – it is £260 billion). Now I am not saying a £20bn black hole is nothing to worry about, but if we have experts from across the world telling us how we can raise £260bn over five years, I think it puts things in an entirely different perspective.
Some might say that all this would do is made the super-rich follow their secret money to some offshore tax haven. However, I would like to point to a group calling themselves “The Patriotic Millionaires UK”. These people are real patriots. To crudely paraphrase what they are saying to the UK Government, it goes something like this – we have money, lots of money, and we think you should tax us more and use the revenue to improve public services. Go to their website and have a look for yourself (Maybe join?).
READ MORE: I am in arrears for council tax – it's a horrendous feeling
They, interestingly, have their own suggestions for raising around £60bn a year. They target, amongst other things, a lot of loopholes in our present over-complicated tax system.
What I find extremely frustrating right now as we approach another Budget is that there is barely any mention of these two groups in the main national media – why are they not on every news bulletin? Are we likely to see them on Question Time? Why have so many people never heard of either group?
From now on, every time you hear politicians claiming we are in dire straits, hard decisions need to be taken, children need to live in poverty, pensioners will just have to freeze, working people cannot have a decent wage, we have to make cut after cut, remember the Wealth Tax Commission and the Patriotic Millionaires UK.
James McGill
Hamilton
IT is good to see The National promoting a discussion of an alternative to the council tax.
Back in 2003, Labour were on the run over council tax as super-inflation increases resulted in a popular revolt against it.
Counter to that, the Scottish Socialist Party were making the running with their alternative Scottish Service Tax (described by Richie Venton in Tuesday’s National). The SNP under John Swinney offered nothing, and Labour’s answer was to promise a commission to look at it, which in due course (after being re-elected with their LibDem lackeys) they threw in the bin.
READ MORE: A Scottish Service Tax would be a good, solid start to getting rid of inequity
Having lost MSPs to the SSP and Greens in 2003, the SNP’s 2007 strategy was to scrap council tax but introduce a flat rate tax, something even more regressive than the council tax itself! In the end, they failed to pursue that also, and we have of late had a series of council tax freezes (also regressive).
There are other local taxation strategies and policies beyond the SSP model, and they have certain things in their favour (and possibly could be incorporated in a hybrid taxation model), but as outlined by Mr Venton, the SST is very much a progressive taxation policy which would benefit the majority, and also be capable of raising the money required for local services which are being squeezed to death under the current system.
David Stevenson
Cambuslang
THE Scottish Socialist Party propose replacing Council Tax with an income-based “service tax”, but woefully fail to differentiate between earned and unearned income. The former stems from work, and any capital returns resulting from it; the latter from what economists call rent-seeking, and I call parasitism.
We have a natural right to the full product of our labour (remember Old Labour’s Clause Four, anyone?); earned income should not be taxed, at all.
READ MORE: Scottish council tax spotlight should turn on UK Government
Moreover, taxing “working people” (of whatever economic class, Mr Starmer) leads to (a) emigration, and (b) less inclination to work, with folk opting for more leisure.
The SSP website is very thin on policy and has nothing to say on the issue of land-value trousering, the biggest rip-off of working people. I assume the SSP oppose it, so why don’t they advocating full land-value taxation? The fact that they don’t shows typical muddle-headed socialist thinking.
George Morton
Rosyth
IN response to Malcolm Cordell (Letters, Oct 28), my lack of words in my letter of October 21 was limited to the decision of former SNP chief executive Murray (The Vow) Foote to synchronise his resignation announcement with the exact time of Alex Salmond’s departure from North Macedonia. It was impossible to put my then anger into words.
On the subject of minimum unit pricing, I am well aware that retailers should have to pay tax on their “winnings” from this scheme. However, Corporation Tax is currently levied at 25% so, for example, only £1 of the £4 added to a bottle of whisky becomes tax revenue. Corporation Tax income goes directly to the UK Treasury and is then partially returned to Scotland, supposedly based on population. On that basis Scotland potentially benefits to the tune of around 8p a bottle.
The Scottish Government appear to want to reduce alcohol consumption on one hand while actively promoting the sale and consumption of whisky and Scottish brewed beers on the other – including subsidising the construction of new whisky distilleries with taxpayers’ money. Maybe, just maybe, it should not do both at the same time.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
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