UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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It's difficult because people in the higher tax brackets are already paying the lion's share of taxes in the UK and due to the laffer curve and expensive accountants it's hard to squeeze them. They'll say a load of BS about leaving but the real issue is the little things they can do is extra pension contributions and those sorts of things that let them avoid the next tax bracket. Fiscal drag is increasing the tax intake without the govt needing to enact any specific rises anyway.
Translation: wage slaves.
Anyone in a income tax bracket is not the people the left is talking about. That is the effect of billionaires owned media distorting the conversation. And as a slave to that media High wage earners fall for it and distort the conversation every time.
Over the last 40 years. Post 79. The wealthy have taken a much larger % of GDP growth while paying much less often 0 tax.
They do this in many ways. But most often by running all their income through multiple corporations. Then taking money out as personal debt. Look at how musk funded his corporate purchases. They use the asset value of big corps. Tho gain such low interest. It is way lower then any tax bracket.
The media then argues fixing this prevents mum and pop businesses competing. While those very businesses are disappearing into debt scams like this. Purchasing the competition. Then pulling huge dept income from it before selling off all assets.
They don't even need to increase income tax, is the thing. They could just give HMRC an extra 1bn in the budget, and HMRC would bring back 8bn thanks to all the extra investigative staff. They could put VAT on all financial services too, that would raise a few hundred million.
But the main thing would simply be to charge CGT at the same rate as income tax. That closes all sorts of loopholes when it comes to avoiding IHT etc.
I always wondered why first homes were excluded from CGT because it creates perverse incentives in the property market where a home becomes an asset with better returns than any other investment
That's kind of by design. Every country has a kind of 'total value' that effects IMF loans, World Banking, and general status. The UK is "worth" so much more on paper because of the exorbitant price of property; politicians and homeowners want to keep it high for that reason.
It would increase rental supply if people couldn't turn (much of) a profit by selling houses that are too big for their needs. I get your point though.