The home page of the campaign group Tax Justice UK makes 10 proposals which they claim could raise £60 billion a year to improve Britain’s public services. They are worth a good look.
Would they work? Or would all the multi-millionaires and wealth creators quit Britain? Would Donald Trump punish us for forcing extractive US companies to pay a fair tax on the profits they earn here? I don’t know – but I suspect that the warnings are overblown.
The super-rich who make a choice to live in Britain do so for many reasons – the schools, the history, the countryside, the climate, the language, personal safety – and the still civilised state of our culture and institutions. That’s a lot to give up to save a very small proportion of your wealth.
Many in the UK have watched the first year of the Labour Government with some disappointment. In the desperate attempt to show that Labour will not repeat the mistakes of Liz Truss, the government boxed itself into a corner with its fiscal rules. They want growth but they are afraid to stimulate that by enough targeted government spending.
And there has been a failure to project a vision of a fairer society.
At a time when a majority of households are struggling to cope with inflated prices, Labour is terrified of being labelled “the party of high taxes.” Hence the ill-judged rise in employers’ national insurance contributions.
Surely the way out of the impasse is to tax wealth and very high earners. This has two big advantages.
1: There might seriously be enough money pay for good schools, universities, roads, police, council services, water quality, the environment, social housing, social care, health and defence.
2: There would be a sense that we live in a decent country, where there is a form of social contract between the very well off, the big property and land owners and giant corporations to channel some money back to help those who are struggling – or being paid a pittance for socially vital jobs. There should be a focus on reducing child poverty and on giving help to the underprivileged to improve their chances in life.
(CAVEATS: Clearly a left-of-centre government spending more on the welfare state would need to ensure that the benefits system doesn’t discourage some people from taking paid work – or encourage others to see themselves as victims or to exaggerate their disabilities.
Trades unions as much as corporations represent vested interests, and a social contract to redistribute wealth should involve rules to put the national interest first and ensure that essential services are provided.
Crucially for me personally, anger and class warfare are counter-productive. If we can’t work together and respect each other as individuals, how can we expect to prosper as a nation?)
Meanwhile we know that the right-wing media will depict any policy changes in this direction as “Now they want to tax the grafters.” (Daily Express). “Now they are going to tax your garden!” Dailygetsmuchworse. That is the propaganda world we live in – where talk of taxing wealth and land is almost taboo in the popular media. Not surprising, since most of it is owned by billionaires and tax exiles.
But this is a Labour Government. If they won’t bring in PR for general elections, they are going to have to compete for power with Reform. What better way to counter Nigel Farage’s claim to represent “the common man” than to make the bold move to raise the extra revenue needed from the super-rich? How would he counter that?
Please add your comments on this article – because there are no perfect solutions to the never-ending tension between the needs of the public services and the vested interests of big business and private wealth and power. It would be good to give a fair hearing to each of the 10 proposals of Tax Justice UK in turn. See https://taxjustice.uk
SB