I was interviewed by Xander Elliards for The National about wealth tax last week. I just found the video on YouTube. This is all pretty relevant in the context of the planned launch of my series on taxing high incomes and wealth more this week:
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General questions, if I may, please:
1. What would determine wealth? Would this be tangible and/or intangible assets?
2. How would a taxation policy be drawn up from the perspective of reasonableness? ‘Wealth’, as a term, is subjective. EG what I have may be little in terms of capital assets, but will seem like ‘wealth’ to someone who is having to survive on UC w/ foodbanks.
3. Would excess capital (profit) from the sale of a home be handled with CGT? In my own case, the value of my residential house has increase c.30% over several years (House Price Index value). If I sold, would the c.30% be seen as ‘unearned income’ / ‘wealth’ and subject to CGT?
I honestly don’t know how we (as a nation) would go about managing a wealth tax. We’d have to be very careful to ‘tax people until the pips squeek’ – some can become very jealous of what others have, both in terms of earned wealth (savings from taxed wages etc) and unearned wealth (interest on capital, share dividends etc).
Many thanks
Dave
Please note I reject the idea of a wealth tax because valuation is so difficult.
Instead I opt for suggesting improvements in taxing income and gains derived ffrom wealth, which resolves most oif these issues.
My series begins later this week, I hope.
Richard
Richard,
Thank you for your response; I look forward to your series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZHdXOWMChE&ab_channel=GarysEconomics
Do you have any agreement with this chap , Richard ?
Some, yes
But we come fromn differemt angles and I am more techncial and probbaly more pragmatic