Well duh. The wealthy already know how to avoid current taxes. Of course they would rather that then Any change in how they are taxed.
Guess who's side this article is on.
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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The 'economist' trained chancellor apparently was sick on the day they studied diminishing returns. And she has never met anyone who lived through the seventies like an early Gen X or older (I find that strange: most of us played with Lego extensively).
We went to the the IMF for 13% of GDP then, but it would be 100%+ of GDP now.
But yeah, you put the taxes up. Doesn't really matter how much anymore.
Denis Healey (Chancellor at the time) later joked about “squeezing the rich until the pips squeak.” when marginal tax was 98%.
Meanwhile millionaires are leaving the UK in droves, the acknowledgement that 'only the poor pay tax.' has been a thing since the 18th century.
The 70s comparison doesn’t really hold. Healey’s 98% rate was on paper but almost nobody paid it because of loopholes and avoidance. The IMF bailout then was about 13 percent of GDP, but scaling that up to 100% doesn’t make sense. The UK borrows differently today and isn’t in that situation.
The idea that millionaires are leaving in droves is exaggerated. A few go, most don’t, and the UK still draws plenty of wealthy people in.
The real point is that the very rich don’t take salaries. They hold assets. Income tax doesn’t touch most of their resources, which is exactly why a wealth tax is being talked about. Saying we’d just be repeating the 70s misses what the debate is actually about.
You might have read that I wrote only the poor pay tax. There were no poor people within the 98% bands and high income/HNW people wouldn't have paid it anyway.
Oh so the rich are completely different from the rich of yesterday year. I don't think so. Drawing plenty of wealthy people in? I bet you're going to say trickle-down wealth next, you know you want to. G'wan.
You know, of course, a person can voluntarily pay amounts to HMRC or other authorities whenever they like. They don't have to wait for a request by the authority. The amount on their tax demand is a minimum value.
I don't quite follow. I agree that wealth doesn't trickle down and tbh I can't tell if we agree or not generally. I can't quite follow. I think the wealthy should pay a wealth tax.
The wealthy have the resources and access to professionals not to pay tax. So they don't.
I agree that they should pay tax, but they don't. It is how/what it is. Good luck with getting them to pay a wealth tax over and above.
There are two main things that seem to work:
- Having taxes at low levels for everyone generally. The expense and hassle of untangling the last set of measures and re-tangling to avoiding low levels of tax simply isn't worth it.
- After a two or sometimes three generations, the wealth is frittered away by overindulged children, messed up childhoods and their access to drugs and alcohol in lieu of parents. Sometimes the children are so wealthy, well-educated and taught to wealth preserve that that doesn't happen.
That millionaires leaving in droves myth is always trotted out in these debates.
The very institute that was perpetuating the idea recently rescinded their own report because the UK is making millionaires at 10x the rate they are leaving. But of course that’s not reported on.
Plus, again, the ultra rich operating on a global scale don’t pay taxes anyway, so good riddance.
Did all the millionaires leave when taxes were incredibly high compared to today’s standards? And again we’re talking progressive taxation. Only income above a certain threshold would have a higher rate applied. They won’t notice it. They literally are just fighting it because they can.
Many UK millionaires only speak English and don’t want to uproot their lives to save a tiny amount on taxes (the S&P500’s returns will always make up for whatever tiny additional percentage we might tax the rich).
It’s so silly to think that there’s this millionaire flight. By now we wouldn’t have any left.
Oh and conveniently it’s happening in all other countries too. So where are they going, space? Antarctica? It’s propaganda for the stupid.