UK Politics Thread

[rory_20_uk]

High earners require the society they live in to both earn and enjoy the wealth. That's why you can have live in London, enjoy restaurants, world class galleries / theatres etc with little risk of being attacked out, having one's home robbed or one's nearest and dearest kidnapped for ransom.

Yes, the problem of treating "income" from a job (which the peasants have) and from ownership of assets (which the richer have so much more of) differently is oh so beneficial. I say that (now) as someone who works via their own (tiny) company and would be able to take "entrepreneurs relief" on up to ?10 million should I shut the company down. So I pay 19% income tax, and can then take the rest after paying massively less tax. Oh, and of course no NI either. So yes I limit my income to what I need and at some point in the future I can just close it down and get a decent amount of money whilst paying little tax. Scale that up to billionaires, and the effective tax rate drops into single figures.

There are ways to tax capital on an ongoing basis - in the UK for example, there is a system if money is left in a Trust there is a tax to pay on total wealth. But unsurprisingly those with the most to loose are very reluctant to help others.