> and the government is doing nothing.
What do you think the government should do?
What do you think the government should do?
At some point if the rich continue to demand sacrifice of the poor to prop up their gathering of wealth, it'll be guillotines in the streets. Historically Britain's upper class has been sensible at offering compromise to avoid extreme change, but it appears the current crop think their control of the media is enough to keep the population placid while they suffer.
So far, they appear to have been right. Who knows how long that'll continue as things get significantly harder for the average person.
I am very skeptical about any new taxes aiming for wealth distribution that are not very explicit about who should pay that tax.
Taxing rich folk more doesn't hurt poor people who don't pay those taxes.
The alternative, not taxing anyone much, has been tried: it gets us here, with public services collapsing and the country becoming less and less desirable to exist in. We are so far on the left of the Laffer curve it is laughable, even if we ignore the insanity of assuming that the value of having a society that functions isn't relevant.
What alternative are you offering? Not taxing anyone much leaves us with a society that simply doesn't function, we see that right now. FUD about "well, they could tax the wrong people" is pretty irrelevant when we are already in a situation where most people are facing poverty and ruin. If this is all we can expect, then might as well roll the dice on doing it right.
Of course, the idea there is no way to actually tax the rich is absurd, we can do it, we have just had decades of government with no will to do so.
Which way is that, other than the ways we already do it?
- Tax capital gains and dividends that are classically the rates actually paid by the megarich rather than income tax.
- Tax wealth directly rather than just income.
- Tax much more heavily generally and commit to a significant basic income to ensure everyone has a solid baseline.
This is just off the top of my head, we have an entire government of people and a huge field of existing research and ideas, not to mention other countries and historic data on taxing more than the UK right now to look at.
Take most rich people; their wealth is generally in assets like land, or in investments. If you gradually move their company ownership and land ownership to the government, what do you get?
Oh no, sounds terrible. /s
This is not FUD. They always tax the wrong people. We as a society can do many, many things but we simply cant coordinate to do them. And indeed we should consider this lack of coordination (for a lack of a better term) as something we should take into account when making decisions.
I honestly dont have a solution to this problem.
"We voted in the Tories again and they continued to lower taxes for their mates and screw over the poor" is hardly trying everything. Throwing your hands in the air, accepting suffering and society collapsing while they profit off it isn't an answer.
You are saying you don't think it's impossible, just that no one is willing to do it: we have to create pressure to do the right thing, and demand it, not make excuses and accept it as inevitable.
So we need to increase taxes there rather than income tax, and, I would personally argue, begin taxing wealth rather than just income when people have millions of pounds of assets.
Of course, I'd also argue we should have higher bands, once we fix the other problems and people are actually paying those rates. Paying say, 60% over a million pounds of income seems totally reasonable for me. You've already got a huge amount of income at that point taxed at a lower rate. You can afford to pay more, and should want to in order to get a better society to live in.
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke...
Britain had a 95% tax rate in the 1960s, as heard in "Taxman" by the Beatles "There's one for you, nineteen for me" [2].
[1] https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/denmark/individual/taxes-on-per...
So...tax those whose income is higher than Latty's income - 1 pound? I am sure you can afford it.
A new progressive tax regime requires a lot of research, consultations, political capitals, and most importantly, time. We don't have a lot of time right now.
We don't have a lot of time, that's a reason to start now rather than delaying the solution even further: people will suffer the longer we pretend we can have the country function as a funnel to the wealthy instead of a place for people to live.
It does mean we customers will endure higher energy costs for longer - but it will greatly soften the impact on the massive spikes we are set to see over the next 6+ months. It will also have the knock on effect of reducing inflationary pressures, making the need for rapid interest rate rises less likely, reducing borrowing costs.
Look again at what can be done to further enhance and accelerate investments in alternative energy production and storage. This includes looking at tackling planning regulations which so often tie up critical infrastructure projects in the UK for years (sometimes decades), too much nimbyism. Often by peeps who moved next to an existing facility (be it a windfarm, a nuclear plant, etc.) and then complain when it's suggested the plant be extended ... shocker ... who'd have thought that could happen! Invest in a massive, nation wide home insulation scheme - properly invest, not the silly little schemes they've tried so far. Which were badly thought out and badly implemented, and probably full of corruption and wastage.
At the same time continue (and back-date) the "windfall" tax on exploration and production - this wasn't "profit", this was "free money". The companies did not generate this income from improved working practices, efficiency drives, deployment of new technologies, etc. etc. - it was in nearly all senses a windfall. The oil majors are unlikely to invest it ("we don't even know what to do with all this income!" ...), and even if they did it will have absolutely no impact on the lives of UK citizens for years and years - the problem exists now, it needs a solution now.
The whole situation is made more infuriating given the UK produces 50% (+/-) of its own gas. But thanks to our exposure to the prevailing market and the ease of transport to the continent we are suffering as much (heck, more than) many other nations in Europe.