Wealth taxes are often said to be the source of the additional revenues this country needs to solve its financial problems. There are two problems with this claim.<\/p>\n
The first is that government spending is not funded by taxation. It is funded by the Bank of England. I explain why in my ebook \u2018Money for nothing and my Tweets for free\u2019, available online free here<\/a> or as a hard copy, here<\/a>. This does not mean a wealth tax is not important because it is, but it has to be understood why it is.<\/p>\n As importantly, a wealth tax is no panacea. Not only will they take years to introduce, but the revenue that they might collect is also hard to predict. This, though, does not mean wealth need not be taxed. There are many simpler and more effective ways to tax wealth more in the short term than by creating a wealth tax. I have provided the links to many blogs on this issue on this wiki page<\/a>. The more important are here:<\/p>\n We can tax wealth more, and I think we should. But let\u2019s go for the low-hanging fruit first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n