There’s more that can be done. A radical and complete overhaul of land taxes is required by introducing Land Value Taxation. Based on the maximum developed potential of the land, it would go some way to removing land banks and ensuring currently empty properties are released onto the market.

LVT would also ensure that those who profit directly from taxpayer-funded infrastructure improvements, would also contribute more towards the improvements they’ve had a financial benefit from.

Introduce LVT first and then look at reductions in income and other forms of taxes.

“That it so happens revenue can be raised a the same time is a bonus.”

Jesus Christ. I regularly get annoyed with right-wingers using the straw man that lefties only want to tax the rich out of jealousy and spite. I always thought they’d made it up out of whole cloth to avoid addressing the actual issues.

No longer. Today I discover that it’s all your fault. Nice job breaking it, hero.

No Richard, the first thing Clegg needs to do is back a Land Value Tax, a Tax that cannot be avoided. You have been told this enough times as has Clegg. Its as if you are both trying to divert attention from a Tax that cannot be avoided with proposals that can be avoided.

There’s only one thing that I disagree with in this article.

“Nick Clegg wants to tax wealth”

Shouldn’t that be “Nick Clegg says he wants to tax wealth”? Because there’s no relationship between what Nick Clegg (a) says and (b) believes let alone (c) does.

Honestly tired of RM’s ill-informed drivel. The tax system is already heavily distributive, and much more so than countries such as Sweden and Denmark which the left so admire.

Lets just compare shall we?

The top rate of income tax in Denmark cannot exceed 51.5%, but that INCLUDES their equivalent of NI and council tax. VAT is 25%. Corporation tax is 25%, but most companies pay a reduced rate, and Cap gains tax is 25%. Inheritance tax is 15% over a similar threshold to the UK.

In Sweden the top rate of tax works out to about 58% after deductions for NI and council tax (as well as other normal deductions) are considered. VAT is again 25%, corporation tax is 26.3% as is Capital gains (though there are a lot of execptions to this tax rate). There is no IHT.

In the UK, we have a top tax rate of 45%, but that DOES NOT include NI and council tax. NI for a top rate taxpayer is 12%, on top of 13.8% for the employer. VAT is 20%. Corporation tax is 24% (20% for small businesses) and Capital gains tax is at 28% for high rate taxpayers. IHT is 40% over threshold.

So, what we see in this ismple comparison, and assuming people agree that VAT is a regressive tax and income taxes are progressive, is that the UK has a MORE progressive tax regime than those social democratic countries RM likes to harp on about. You’d think a so called tax expert would know this.

Then again, the truth and RM never seem to cross – his claim he invented country by country reporting is utter tripe. It is the alternative to the accepted method of cross border accounting – transfer pricing (guidelines from 79, regulated for between 94 and 96 in OECD). Which there are armies of accountants around the globe doing, and have been doing so for decades.

CbC reporting was thoroughly rejected a long time ago as being essentially unworkable for export/import and cross-border businesses, as it leaves little room to account for companies which produce in country A (a cost or loss), sell in country B (profit) and are headquatered in country C. With transfer pricing you can offset profits and losses and leave a net profit and pay tax on it once (RM is particularly opposed to the ability to choose domicile). With CbC reporting this is near impossible to do, and would essentially lead to companies paying tax on gross profits rather than net profits, which is clearly nonsense.

Ultimately I fear that RM’s real dream is some kind of socialist command economy where the great bulk of wealth created and moeny earnt is controlled directed by the state, nominally in the aims of “equality”. The problem with such command economies is that it’s always the person who suggests them who thinks they would be best fit to run such a thing.

If we want to tax wealth, we should at least talk about it instead of confusing wealth and income. There are many people that can be considered wealthy who do not have a high income. Similarly, there are those who might be considered to have a high income who do not have much wealth.

An example of the former is a pensioner on a teacher’s pension with a house valued at over £1M. It wasn’t worth anything like that when it was bought, but gentrification and prices rises have made it that. The latter is someone (I was this person) who, after years of struggling on an average income, found somewhere they could excel and gets paid a 6 figure salary.

Firstly, most wealth has been earned, and income tax paid, so we are in the realms of double taxing, such as IHT. Pensions are wealth that has not been taxed (if it is a final salary version) and could be included and taxed as assets.

How should we treat a property? Say it’s worth £1.5M and the resident pays the equivalent of a £200k mortgage. Is the excess £1.3M wealth? What if it’s a council house?

How about investments in companies? If someone invests £1M should it be taxed?

As for IHT, it’s a mess. There are ways of getting round it (ask the Millibands) if you’re wealthy enough. The poor don’t pay it, as it right, but the bulk is paid by the middle, not the wealthy.

I’m also for LVT. Another benefit of LVT is that it will provide Councils with an incentive to grant planning permissions (consequently providing more housing) because it will be a ‘free’ way of increasing the V.

If Clegg is serious he has to do three things.

He is, I’ve read the policy consultation document.

First, if we seriously tackled tax havens vastly more wealth would be found and be subject to income tax. This would create real tax justice.

Income is not wealth, therefore this point is irrelevent.

Second, we could, of course, have a 50% tax rate, which the Lib Dems have just got rid of.

Income is not wealth, therefore this point is irrelevent.

Third, we could stop income being sheltered in limited companies by taxing the profits of private companies as the personal income of their owners.

Income is not wealth, therefore this point is irrelevent.

Fourth we could eliminate the abuse that having a capital gains tax rate ;less than the income tax rate permits.

Income is not wealth, therefore this point is irrelevent. However doing this remains LD party policy and the Tories are opposed to it, which any well informed commentator would know.

Fifth, inheritance tax could be made to work. There are numerous ways to do this: cutting allowances would be a start.

Reform of inheritance tax is indeed in the consultation document, the most likely proposal is to scrap it entirely and replace it with an Accessions Tax.

Sixth, ending large numbers of tax reliefs that are solely designed to create loopholes for the wealthy would be of great value. So let’s get rid of venture capital trusts, EIS, higher rate charity reliefs and so much more.

Income is not wealth, therefore this point is irrelevent.

So, 6 points made by Richard and unless he’s being incredibly opaque and unclear, 4 of them are completely irrelevent, one is already something being pushed for by the party, another is in the policy proposal but in a much better form.

I actually thought this was a surprisingly sensible set of suggestions. Many of RM’s proposals could just as happily come from a right wing think tank. Most “neo-liberals” want all the allowances and distortions removed from the tax code so as to simplify things (and lower the tax rate as a quid pro quo).

The raising of CGT to nearer the income tax rate was one of first things Osborne did as Chancellor. Not that RM ever gives any credit to Osborne for anything. Brown ludicrously reduced CGT so that his private equity friends could make even more money. The Treasury claim that a 28% CGT rate optimises the capital gains tax take.

A 50p top rate of income tax is clearly nonsense for an economy like the UK that attracts tens of thousands of foreign professionals and business people to be based here. Having one of the highest income tax rates in the developed world is clearly silly.

What does surprise me about RM’s list is there is no real mention of taxing the unearned wealth that many London and South East property owners who were fortunate to buy 20 years ago have made.

For every dodgy businessman with £5m in a Caymans bank account there are hundreds of London headteachers, university lecturers and GPs who live in £2m houses they bought for £200,000 back in the early 90s.

On some of the practical challenges in administering a wealth tax, try Howard Davies in the FT on: Don’t make wealth tax a habit :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c027693c-f120-11e1-a553-00144feabdc0.html#axzz251RTVR00

Think: How to value the shares in a family run business or small company? Do you trust an estate agent to value your house? Is a work of art to be included as wealth and, if so, how is it to be valued? Would there be a system for dealing with appeals against valuations?

I’ve only one thing to add to MatGB’s excellent comment:

“a mansion tax would need a revaluation of vast numbers of properties simply to result in a tony number paying a small additional contribution. That’s not efficient by by measure thought of.”

This would be a dead easy job. HMRC’s Valuation Office Agency already collects all the data needed to carry this task out. All Mansion Tax needs is the political will.

“What does surprise me about RM’s list is there is no real mention of taxing the unearned wealth that many London and South East property owners who were fortunate to buy 20 years ago have made”

Its not ” unearned wealth ” and they were not “fortunate” enough to buy there houses, they established enough of an income due to there working choices which allowed them to be able to buy there property, they then spent a couple of decades paying council tax and maintaining there property.

@Duncan Stott

Could you explain how HMRC has these property valuations and how they determine them.

Take a 5 bed farmhouse in Chipping Norton. Bought in 2000 for £1m. Put on the market in 2007 for a cheeky £1.6m but only got a £1.35m offer. Local estate agents say put it on the market today for £1.3m but accept £1.15m for a quick sale.

What’s it actually worth ?

What a car-crash of an article.

Richard’s title refers to ‘wealth’ but most of his suggestions here are to do with income. Does he not understand the difference? And it appears his primarymotivation is spite before any economic benefit.

“What does surprise me about RM’s list is there is no real mention of taxing the unearned wealth that many London and South East property owners who were fortunate to buy 20 years ago have made.”

This has already been covered; there are numerous people who own what are now very expensive homes, but who spent a long time paying the mortgage (and council taxes etc, as pointed out) on those. A lot of those people may not have much else in the way of actual money in the bank. Yet you are suggesting just levying an additional sum on them each year. What if they are retired and are on a very low income? Sell the house? Ah, of course, make them sell what many have spent most of their working life trying to achieve, and have indeed bought through their own work.

Also pretty stupid to suggest that “unearned” income is not taxed in the UK. In some cases it is taxed twice…

Housing: stamp duty + cap gains (for 2nd homes only)
Dividends: income tax (and possibly cap gains)
Shares and other financial assets: Cap gains
Inheritance tax
Pensions: untaxed on the way in, income tax on the way out

Remembering also that people also pay income tax on earnings *before* they can accumulate any of the above assets….

I agree largely with what you say, but surely most of what you suggests relates to income rather than wealth. Inheritance tax effectively taxes wealth (unless you pass it on the person inheriting it in which it could be regarded as taxing their income), but the rest of your suggestions seem to relate to income. I’m all for closing loopholes, increasing the top rate of tax, properly taxing capital gains and investment income, but I don’t see a really sensible way of actually taxing wealth (i.,e., the total of someone’s wealth rather than amount by which it has increased).

Would it be more absurd than this article to suggest that people be taxed punitively if they buy a newspaper or give significant money to a political party?

@Tyler

Who said “unearned income” wasn’t taxed ? Clearly all income is taxed. Whether it is from actual 9-5 work or dividends or interest income.

And all capital gains are taxed apart from capital gains on your primary property.

I’m just surprised that RM never mentioned this in an article about wealth taxes as it is clearly the largest source of “wealth” in the country.

It is an economically unproductive anomaly that if you have spare cash you can buy a bigger house and not have too pay capital gains on any increase whereas if you invest your spare cash in investing in a UK company you’ll be clobbered for income tax on dividends and CGT on any gain.

Of course there are problems with CGT on primary property (as Lamia points out) but there are solutions. For instance, a mansion tax could be rolled up and paid on the death of an asset-rich/cash poor homeowner.

And property inflation is clearly an unearned gain, regardless of whether you’ve been paying council tax and maintaining the property.

And “working hard to pay the mortgage” ? Yes, that’s why the CGT would be on the GAIN. You buy a house for £200k then you are paying off a £200k mortgage. But if the house is then worth £2m, you pay CGT on the £1.8m GAIN.

Here is an easy start – simplify Income Tax
1. Scrap NI and raise the base rate of tax to 32% (initiall) / 41% / 46%
2. Tax all income with the new Income tax rates – Dividends, Capital Gains etc

With the money gained from 2 you could probabl reduce 1 for everyone and remain tax neutral (which is prety fair)

Make all momey earned within the UK subject to UK tax, so no paying people offshore or distributing dividends a la Philip Green

@ 14 Lamia

“Ah, of course, make them sell what many have spent most of their working life trying to achieve, and have indeed bought through their own work.”

Judging from the attitude shown in the OP, I think Richard would very cheerfully do that, possibly while shouting “Bwa ha ha ha!”

@ 18 Shinsei

You can spend that extra cash on a bigger house, but stamp duty does increase as the value of the house goes up…so you do end up paying more for larger houses.

Your primary residence doesn’t have any cap gains attached, but secondary residences do….so if I buy a second house purely for investment purposes for say 500k, which goes up to 750k over a period of time, I pay stamp duty initially and when I come to sell it I pay cap gains on the increase in price (250k) at a rate dependent on my total income. I also pay tax on any rental income at normal income tax rates, again depending on my total earnings.

The reason for the lack of CGT on a primary residence is that home ownership is something successive governments want to promote – people need roofs over their heads. But do remember, that first house is essentially an unproductive asset in terms in income – I don’t get any more direct functionality if ii live in a small house or a large one….but I’ve sunk a lot more cash into the large hosue which I now no longer can invest in other assets which do give me a direct return. Roughly speaking it evens out in the wash.

@ 20 Chaise

Seconded…I sometimes wonder what world he lives in. His tone always suggests to me he seems to think only he can solve the worlds problems and lead us into his idea of what the sunlit uplands are….probably in chains.

@ 21 Tyler

Agreed. I don’t know enough to comment on his specific proposals (except to agree with other posters that income =/= wealth), but when someone admits that they’d take money from others *simply for the sake of it*, I know I won’t be pinning their colours to my mast.

I’m all for taxing the rich, within the bounds of reason and pragmatism, to help the less well-off. But not out of sheer spite.

Jennie just pointed out to me. Richard says Clegg needs to do three things.

Then lists 6 points.

I really hope he counted better when he was working as an accountant.

Incidentally, I disagree with Duncan on the Mansion Tax, I always thought it was a half baked proposal, a poor mans LVT. Either reband Council Tax properly, or go the whole hog and introduce LVT, mansion tax is a waste of time.

I’d be even happier to see Council Tax reformed to become a proper property tax rather than the mutated poll tax it is today, and even happier with proper LVT.

But while these options appear to be off the table, I’d rather have Mansion Tax than nothing.

@ Chaise

I’m all for taxing the rich, within the bounds of reason and pragmatism, to help the less well-off. But not out of sheer spite.

In fairness to Murphy, he said that it was because “wealth inequality is deeply destructive of community in the UK.”

But nonetheless I’m glad you can see through the mirage of his intellectual and fiscal Stalinism.

@ 22 Chaise

I’m right of centre, and I guess you are moderately left of centre, but I do agree with the left (and most of the right) that there should be a degree of redistribution of wealth. It’s a question of how.

Where I take massive issue is with the likes of RM who as you say, wants to take money from other people simply for the sake of it, not least because he thinks he knows better when it comes to spending it. That is command economy style thinking, autocratic bordering on the dictatorial, and should have died a death when the Soviet Union did for all the good it did there.

I’m also a realist. You can’t airbrush out all inequality, however hard you try. Some people are born better off, some are smarter and some can run faster etc….some are simply downright lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The world is not fair.

I also think that aspiration is a massive driver of growth and invention. If we were all paid rougly the same, and there was little I could do to better my life through my own labour, I probably wouldn’t. Some might, but if there was little chance of reward, or if President for life Murphy arbitrarily confiscated much of my earnings, I would seriously consider spending more time on my backside. I think both aspects drive human nature, and that strive to better ourselves, for most at least, is rewards based.

Where I am strongly in favour of more equality is in opportunity – specifically education. A poor kid (like I was) can easily make good in life given the right education and some hard work, and come out on top. Rather than trying to squash the rich down to the lowest common denominator, why not try and lift the poor up. Better still, why not try and give the poor the means to lift themselves up.

That much of the left still think in terms of class warfare, the rich somehow robbing the poor and feeling the need to define and control their lives through labelling them as deprived in some way, engendering the idea that they have been cheated and locking them into subsistence on the state is to that part of the political spectrum’s enternal shame.

“Here is an easy start – simplify Income Tax
1. Scrap NI and raise the base rate of tax to 32% (initiall) / 41% / 46%
2. Tax all income with the new Income tax rates – Dividends, Capital Gains etc”

An excellent idea. But one that won’t happen without significant reform of the tabloids who would simply attack the idea as a tax rise, regardless of how many times it was pointed out as revanue neutral – they’d even attack it if an actual tax cut occured at the same time.

@ 26 Tyler

“I’m also a realist. You can’t airbrush out all inequality, however hard you try. Some people are born better off, some are smarter and some can run faster etc….some are simply downright lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The world is not fair. ”

Agreed. All political positions should be based in the real world.

“I also think that aspiration is a massive driver of growth and invention. If we were all paid rougly the same, and there was little I could do to better my life through my own labour, I probably wouldn’t. ”

Agreed again! Of course, communistic state control isn’t the only way to kill aspiration. The same can happen in more libertarian systems where, for example, education is too expensive for the poor, meaning that those who are born into poverty are going to stay there unless they’re incredibly lucky.

“Where I am strongly in favour of more equality is in opportunity – specifically education. A poor kid (like I was) can easily make good in life given the right education and some hard work, and come out on top. Rather than trying to squash the rich down to the lowest common denominator, why not try and lift the poor up. Better still, why not try and give the poor the means to lift themselves up. ”

Good philosophy. I’d add the caveat that in the specific case of children we should be lifting them up rather than giving them the tools to do so and leaving them to their own devices. Children aren’t fully responsible for their own lives.

“That much of the left still think in terms of class warfare”

Well, “class warfare” is just one way of describing inequality, really. Where members of the left try to present it as an “us vs them” battle between the haves and have-nots, I suspect that’s because it positions them into a place that is easy to defend and hard to attack. Simply put, it’s easier to get away with sneering at the upper class than sneering at the working class.

And of course the right is hardly innocent of this either. Hence the attempts to dismiss liberalism, environmentalism, and even socialism (FFS) as the witterings of overprivileged, skinny-latte-sipping, Guardian-reading yoga affectionados. Both sides have people who like to play the man rather than the balll.

It’s interesting to see a general consensus that Richard Murphy’s views are not well received by anyone, even those on the left. If you read his own blog you would think that no one disagrees with him. That’s because, as has been mentioned above, he is totally authoritarian in thought as well as deed as he imposes a strict censorship rules on the comments on his blog. And it is censorship as anyone who disagrees with him and tries to debate politely is banned. The best he will say is “With respect I disagree with you”, but in actual fact it shows no respect at all as he then refuses to debate the point.

Oakeshott is spot on. The LibDems need to start thinking about how to replace Clegg as leader before the next election.

Agreed with Chaise, Tyler and others. I support sensible and constructive redistribution of wealth, but that has to be (a) workable and (b) not simply out of spite.

I would not be likely to be touched directly by any of Richard’s proposals (although arguably would be indirectly, along with many others, as I think they are economic lunacy). I don’t own a home, a business, land, or have a private pension. I have virutally zero. But I am very much against high-handedly trying to squeeze as much as possible out of people wherever possible, and especially regarding primary properties. That is just brutal. I can handle someone living in a house which is worth a lot which they’ve worked hard to pay for, even if it’s gone up very nicely in value.

The growth of wealth in property can be something of a mirage anyway – one’s house may be worth ten times what it was, say, twenty years ago, but so is quite probably the house one might buy if one sold one’s own.

I also think a land value tax could be much trickier than people imagine. Not all land is, or even should be, developable or economically viable, so to demand money for someone owning it is not necessarily right. And then there is the issue of common land and land owned by trusts and even, arguably, public bodies. If there’s one way to guarantee councils will sell off more land, it’s to slap a tax on every bit of land.

Often it’s not actually ‘theirs’ anyway; it may have been bequeathed under certain conditions which make ownership or trusteeship void if they are not adhered to; a lot of assumed council property is not something council have deeds for. Not so far form where I live the council sold off a school and its land to provate developers. Now a lot of schools were started by private benefactors under the condition that the land and buildings were for a particular educational purpose; they were often later handed over to local government administration, which is fine so long as councils continue to use them for the original purpose. But they are arguably not the council’s to dispose of simply as they like – in fact it’s fair to guess that a great deal of council sell-offs of property have been, strictly, sell-offs they had no legal right to make. In any case, I think a LVT is something to be extremely wary about.

(sorry for typos above.)

Lamia: “I also think a land value tax could be much trickier than people imagine.”

Absolutely. I think it would become necessary to apply a similar approach to the banding method now used to assess residential properties for local rates to avoid the wrinkles of the old rating system in which each individual property had its own rateable value. The result was continuing appeals because of noisy pubs, shops, and traffic or because views or the neighbourhood had changed with new local developments.

The incidence of a land value tax would fall disproportionately on London and the South East regions – as the inheritance tax (IHT) does – when those regions are already paying for the gap between tax revenues and public spending in the rest of Britain.

The Lib Dems have long argued that the burden of taxation should be shifted from income towards wealth. There is nothing inconsistent in Clegg calling for a wealth tax (which is more than the mansion tax) while also supporting the reduction in the 50p rate to 45p. In Britain, wealth is concentrated in even fewer hands than income and is an untapped source of government revenue. If taxes on income are to be reduced for the poorest workers through a significantly higher personal allowance . I would support Land Value Taxation as part of a wealth tax.

@ 4 Phil. I think you could say that about a lot of politicians..

Again, there is a bigger picture….The system itself
The bloodline of all these rulers around the world goes back to evil roman blood. That of the emperors who invented christianity though were still rapping christians up in fresh animal skins and setting ‘the beasts’ onto them. One of the biggest contradictions of our history, yet we surcome as subjects.
The Roman empire interbread with the German linage around 900BC.
You know that from here, the bloodline spread all around Europe and the America’s.

I just ask people to be informed. Inform themselves about history and as to the whys and hows. Look at all the kings and queens who display mental evils and illness, between 1000AD up to the present day. This proves that the DNA from those evil Roman rulers, still claims the world and systems of it, to this day.

I struggle financially and pay my taxes but I do believe that we should reduce taxes on hardworking small/ to medium size companies and individuals and taxing the wealth (ier ) only results in avoidance and mass exodus and I do think it is in many cases coming from a place of envy. On saying that, it depends on what one calls wealthy and also depends on which tax . Large corps should be reigned in but in many cases a tax is unfair such as personal INHERITANCE TAX. – it is misunderstood as a tax for the rich. It is not. It is a tax on the middle hardworkers who live in London and the south, who are not financially savvy. family homes are sold to pay the gov It is a wicked tax that only the savvy know how to avoid. ( i.e Miliband ! ) the threshold is far too low. a small house in fulham that a family might have been living in for generations would result in a pay out of £3 or £400,000 to the government and that family would have already paid tax all their lives. This tax can not be justified.