What is a wealth tax and would it work in the UK?
A wealth tax is an annual levy on an individual’s total net assets – property, investments, cash, even antiques or art – above a given threshold,The idea is to directly target accumulated wealth, not just income,In the UK there are already some taxes on wealth – inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and council tax – that could be tightened up before a new tax is introduced,A modest wealth tax aimed at the ultra-rich, for example those with assets over £10m, could generate significant funds,One study suggests a global levy on the top 0.
5% could raise about $2.1tn – roughly 7% of national budgets – with the UK alone bringing in around $31bn a year.That revenue could be transformative if used to fund the NHS, education, affordable housing, climate resilience, and long-term care.There is also a political benefit: by launching something new with a specific name, it would appeal to the majority of voters who back higher taxes on the very rich.In Britain, like much of the developed world, the wealth of the ultra-rich has ballooned dramatically in recent decades, while ordinary workers have faced stagnant wages and prolonged austerity and there are record numbers of children growing up in poverty.
In 1990 the Sunday Times rich list recorded 15 UK billionaires.By 2023, that number had risen to 171, holding an average of £4bn each.Today the richest 1% in the UK own more wealth than the bottom 70% and, according to Oxfam, UK billionaires pay “effective tax rates close to 0.3% of their wealth”.Advocates say a wealth tax is a fair way of redistributing a small proportion of that money to help those most in need.
Campaigners also say the money could be used to fund climate transition efforts,Taxing assets tied to high-carbon lifestyles – yachts, private jets, fossil fuel holdings – could shift both wealth and incentives while raising revenue for green infrastructure projects,Surveys consistently find strong backing among the public for a wealth tax,Three-quarters of Britons were found to back a 2% tax on wealth above £10m,Many wealthy individuals, including those in Patriotic Millionaires UK, also publicly endorse such measures as patriotic and socially responsible.
Because wealth comes in diverse forms – business equity, art, land, intellectual property – it is hard to measure, especially if there is an army of lawyers trying to hide it.This complicates enforcement and drives up administrative costs.There is also the spectre of “wealth flight”, fears that wealthy people will pack up their riches and leave if the government tries to tax them further.An analysis by the Tax Justice Network found that there were an average of 30 news pieces a day last year raising the prospect of a wealth exodus.But the evidence is inconclusive at best and the analysis found that the 9,500 millionaires it has been claimed left the UK in 2024 represented 0.
3% of the UK’s 3.06 million people with assets of more than £1m.It also highlighted other places where the introduction of a wealth tax led to little or no “wealth exodus”.For instance in Scandinavia, after wealth tax reforms, only 0.01% of the top 0.
5% relocated and in the UK changes to non-dom rules in 2017 showed just a 0.02% move.The report found tax concerns were low on the list of concerns of the ultra-wealthy when deciding where to live: “Tax is an inconsequential factor in the decision-making of the vanishingly small percentage of millionaires that do decide to move.”However, the fear that some ultra-wealthy individuals will leave the country entirely is not unfounded.Global capitalism has become highly mobile in recent decades through globalisation, government deregulation and improved connectivity.
The Wealth Tax Commission in 2020 said it was likely that some of the ultra-wealthy were likely to leave or move their assets to low-tax regimes or tax havens,There are real challenges in designing a wealth tax and administrative complexity would be a continuing issue,A wealth tax on the ultra-rich might also lead some to move assets out of the UK, but scare stories of mass millionaire departures do not hold up to scrutiny,Advocates say that given widespread public support, the UK’s administrative capacity, and pressing fiscal demands, a progressive tax on the ultra-wealthy is feasible and necessary,The challenge lies in careful design, robust implementation and, most of all, political will.
Rosie O’Donnell dismisses Trump’s threat to revoke her US citizenship
Rosie O’Donnell has shrugged off a threat from Donald Trump to revoke her US citizenship on the grounds that she is “a threat to humanity”.The New York-born actor and comedian said on Sunday that she was the latest in a long list of artists, activists and celebrities to be threatened by the US president.“So, I didn’t take it personally, but I will tell you the way that he is has emboldened people like him,” O’Donnell told RTÉ Radio’s Sunday with Miriam show.The Trump administration has sought to curb citizenship rights and questioned the citizenship of some critics, including Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, as well as people like O’Donnell who were born in the US.On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship
Artist or activist? For Juliet Stevenson and her husband, Gaza leaves them with no choice
Read any celebrity-signed open letter advocating for social justice over the past few years and you’ll probably spot Juliet Stevenson’s name. When the veteran actor is not gracing screens or on a stage somewhere, she’s out on the streets brandishing a placard or giving speeches about human rights, gender equality and the Palestinian right to self-determination.Just last month, she wrote in the Guardian about the British government’s “complicity” in the Gaza atrocities and what she called an attempt to repress civil liberties by proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group.Critics may – and they do – disparage Stevenson as a “luvvie” engaging in typical performative liberal politics, but spend just a few minutes with the actor and her husband – the anthropologist, film-maker and writer Hugh Brody – and you quickly discover that the roots of their activism run far deeper than that.In fact, the fight for peace and justice in Palestine is something that has defined the couple’s relationship for 32 years, particularly because Brody is Jewish and the son of a Holocaust survivor
‘History’s most devastating document of war’: the simple yet graphic details of the Bayeux tapestry
“Angli et Franci” – these Latin words embroidered on the Bayeux tapestry may be the first time those cartoon rivals, the English and the French, were named together. But in one of the shifts from triumph to horror that make this epic work of art still gripping almost a millennium after it was made, the full sentence reads: “Here at the same time the English and French [or Angles and Franks] fell in battle”. Below the black lettering, horses and chainmailed riders are thrown about and upside down in a bloody tangle. In the lower margin lie corpses and a severed head.Now, in an unprecedented piece of cultural diplomacy between the Angli and Franci, this 70-metre long Romanesque wonder, preserved for centuries in Bayeux, Normandy, is to go on show at the British Museum
My cultural awakening: I joined Danny Wallace’s accidental positivity cult – and found the love of my life
I was aimless and lonely after finishing my A-levels. Then a friend recommended the author’s book and everything changedThe spring after my A-levels was not going the way I planned. I was 19, hadn’t got the required grades for any of my university choices and hadn’t saved for a gap year. My friends were off enjoying their new lives and I was stuck at home in Essex with my disappointed parents, doing occasional temp work.Then I read Join Me by the writer and comedian Danny Wallace
Watch the Skies to Wet Leg: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
Watch the SkiesOut now With the return of all things Y2K in fashion and music, it makes sense that the turn of the millennium fascination with little green men would likewise be back in vogue. But this sci-fi about a teenager teaming up with an agency that investigates paranormal phenomena is notable for its futuristic qualities too: it uses AI dubbing technology to create an English-language film from the Swedish original.SupermanOut now Superman is dead, long live Superman: wave goodbye to handsome hunk Henry Cavill’s stint as the man of steel and say hello to the new era of equally handsome hunk David Corenswet, a veteran of two Ryan Murphy series on Netflix. At the helm of this reboot is James Gunn, the director behind diverse entertainments including Slither and Guardians of the Galaxy.Michael Haneke RetrospectiveVarious venues nationwide; to 30 July The Austrian director is known for making films that are often kind of a bummer, but also bona fide masterpieces
The Guide #198: Such Brave Girls shows that grown-up gross-out comedy is thriving
The best binge-watches should make you feel a little bit sick while you gorge on them, and Kat Sadler’s sitcom Such Brave Girls, which just returned for a second season on BBC Three and iPlayer, certainly fits that description. I found myself burning through episodes, the enjoyment of them tempered with the slightest top note of nausea.That isn’t a criticism of the series, which follows the chaotically bleak existence of adult sisters Josie (Sadler) and Billie (Lizzie Davidson), still living at home with their wild-eyed mother, Deb (Louise Brealey). In fact it’s the intended reaction. From its logo (the title of the show made out in strands of wet hair slithering across bathroom tiles) onwards, Such Brave Girls is built to shock, unsettle and gross out, but above all be laughed at
UK ex-Middle East minister accused of transparency rule breach over Bahrain advisory role
What is a wealth tax and would it work in the UK?
Is Reform UK a radical party or a home for ‘disgruntled former Conservatives’, asks James Cleverly
Tory benches almost deserted as Philp cops a lesson on small boats | John Crace
Resident doctors’ strikes would be gift to Nigel Farage, warns Wes Streeting
UK politics: Tories’ energy policy shows they are ‘anti-science, anti-jobs, anti-future’ Miliband tells MPs – as it happened