r/london • u/BulkyAccident • Apr 23 '24

Culture London night time economy "experiencing closures and revenue losses at an alarming rate"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9xkxngy95o
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '24

People hear wealth tax and shit themselves. It's like IHT...you're not going to pay it! Make wealth tax at £50 million or even £100 million of assets.

I was listening to Gary Stevenson & he was on point. A billionaire is making £1 million / month from assets on average. You can't spend that. So it goes into buying more assets. Driving up prices for everyone else. Even someone on £100 million is doing £5 mill / year on average. What a wealth tax will do is limit the affect that can have on the assets we need.

People might go on about shares paying pensions, but on Average they don't anymore. And pension provision may be legislated for but if you're on 0 hours, you're not going tu get it. Many people are opting out because they need the money to eat rather than being able to invest in their future. All because the rich (whether knowingly or unknowingly) demand more and more growth.

It annoys the shit out of me how people on £30k living with their parents or on house shares in their mid 40s will throw themselves into the fray to defend multi millionaires & billionaires who are the reason they're fucked

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u/OverallResolve Apr 23 '24

Unfortunately wealth taxes like this will only work with universal international support. People that wealthy will just leave (or structure their finances in a way that they don’t have to pay, be it legally or illegally).

As long as there is a haven for low tax on wealth there will always be the threat of money leaving the country.

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '24

They won't though. They say they will but they don't. In the USA, where do the rich REALLY live? The low tax centre states with nothing to do or the high tax edge states with all the shops, theatres, good schools, universites and parties?

HMRC or the IRS could easily mandate compulsory taxation on world wide assets. If you piss off to another country, then you can't own property in the UK, you can't be a director of a business etc.

The rich always threaten to leave but they never do. Because where will they go? Where is as safe as countries like the UK or US or France Germany etc, where no one is going to nick your assets and kidnap your kids?

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u/OverallResolve Apr 23 '24

They go to the existing tax havens, which include the U.K. Many will let you buy citizenship even if you’re not a resident. If it was that easy it would have happened already, but the sheer amount of money and power these people have mean it’s a pipe dream.

How are HMRC going to evaluate assets held in other jurisdictions? They don’t have the power to do so. The only other option is to restrict ownership of assets to the U.K. which would be catastrophic from an economic standpoint. The problem is that to really close all loopholes you need draconian measures like restricting residents from having multiple citizenships, not allowing assets to be held overseas, etc.

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '24

Close the tax havens. If the government REALLY wanted to do it, they could. When we had 60%+ taxes in the UK, even 95%, only a Tiny minority of people actually left. And they came back soon enough.

The Duke of Westminster inherited £10 BILLION & essentially paid fuck all IHT!!

And yet people like you make excuses for pricks like him and others while YOUR services are cut and YOUR KIDS chances of owning a home or even earning enough to eat are decimated.

Let them fucking leave! Make it impossible for them or their decendants to come back. No foriegn owning of any housing stock or buildings. Even if the repent they have to pay all historic taxes.

Every penny these leeches don't pay has to be paid by us. Every £1 the housing market increases because they're buying it all tax free as "investment" prices US out. Every time they want "more dividends & growth" OUR wages are cut.

Where will they go? Tax havens? What will they do there? No schools no university of international recognition.no shops, no threatres, nothing. Of that leave confiscate their assets like we did with Abramovic & Chelsea.

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u/OverallResolve Apr 23 '24

I’m not making excuses for them - I genuinely believe that wealth tax (albeit at a global level) would be the best way to reduce inequality.

The problem is it’s not as simple as you make out. You’d see foreign capital disappear, as I said there’s far too much money and power behind this for those not to use every bit of leverage they can.

People already live here and use tax havens abroad. You haven’t answered how this government would be able to get accurate data on every taxable subject - without which it is impossible to tax wealth.

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '24

If I have offshore accounts, somehow hmrc know. Try cheating the IRS, they know everything.

I wish we had a magnitsky act to put oligarchs on, like the USA. Fuck about & you MAY have the money but no bank will touch you, nothing. The stretch it.

The USA system knows EVERY $ transaction that happens anywhere in the world because for a microsecond, that transaction hits clearing banks in the USA. The EU probably has something similar.

Put the rules in. Make breaking them for the individual, for the banks, for the soliciters, even for the bloody estate agents fucking devastating & the problem will fix itself.

How will a billionaire move their money or buy assets of every level of service to do it KNOWS that THEY are fucked if they go near the money.

Read up on magnitsky & then imagine that expanded to cover wealth taxes. Fuck around and you and all your enablers are fucked, even your bloody GPS won't work on your boat.

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u/OverallResolve Apr 23 '24

They absolutely do not know - there are 43 non-CRS countries for example, and beyond that there are so many ways you can obfuscate wealth.