Second richest man in world is given as example of why UK wealth tax won’t work
‘If you want to grow taxes on the wealth side we have got a lot of wealth taxes already, like inheritance tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty. Sort out those taxes is the first way you officially start taxing wealth’ – Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation think tank
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves
One of Labour’s rising stars has jumped to the defense of Chancellor Rachel Reeves for dismissing a wealth tax on the richest people.
Torsten Bell, a former Treasury aide and chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, argues that such a tax wouldn’t raise significant revenues. Despite Ms. Reeves’ highlighting a £22bn hole in public finances, she has shrugged off calls for taxing the nation’s wealthiest.
Supporting the Chancellor’s position, Mr Bell said it was not helpful in the wealth tax debate to compare the UK with the US, as the US has far more billionaires. “On the tax side it is very fashionable on the left to say ‘let’s just have a wealth tax’,” he explained. “For some of us who have spent 20 years working on tax policy, I think that is something that is exciting for them to write in books and not very useful in terms of helping govern the country. There are two reasons why that is.”
“The short reason why that doesn’t work in the UK is two words, Jeff Bezos. He does not live in the UK. And, yes, we do have some very rich people. But our wealth is nowhere near … we don’t have the globally rich people that the US, particularly, has lots of.”
Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, is the richest person and the richest man in the world with a net worth estimated at $269bn. After Musk is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. with a net worth in the region of $208bn.
He added: “You will have a brand new wealth tax and you are not going to bring in really significant revenues in the UK. Secondly, doing it is really hard. I am fed up of people saying the Government should do this then not getting remotely interested in the hard job of getting homes built… taxes that actually raise money.”
attack the rich never works. Get evenism is just a childish political ploy to divide people against each other. Rich people make other people rich. Give them the chance and watch free markets work
Delusions of Adequacy 