UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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I'm all for taxing the wealthy more heavily, and in particular those companies that operate in the UK but extract their profits to other markets, but it just isn't as simple as that.
Most of the tax opportunities to levy against wealth, capital gains or inheritance tax for example, are easily avoided. There would need to be wholesale reform of the tax system and even if any political party had the capital there really aren't that many billionaires or centi-millionaires in the country. There are 55 people in the UK with wealth over a billion.
These people are also the most able to move assets out of a tax system to one that is more forgiving or to hoard assets, transfer them to trusts and family etc.
It would take a decades long program of tax reform to generate any form of meaningful return.
Wealth taxes are part of the potential solution but the aren't the magic bullet people seem to see them as.