54 Varieties

In the latest Tribune an article on tax distribution notes there are 54 billionaires in the UK. Between them they personally pay around £14.87 million tax. Their accumulated incomes are £126 billion - at the rates of tax thee and me pay, they should be paying £50 billion (enough to rebuild and extend the entuire council housing stock of the UK, for a start). instead they effective tax rate is 0.14%.

Add onto that that companies pay no corporation tax, and Huston, we have a problem.

Luckilly, I have a solution - increase the basic rate of income tax. Yes. The basic rate, on the rest of us, we should pay more taxes. For why?

Well, I'll tell you why - because in so doing we'd drive up wages - with a bit of concerted union effort - we'd push the burden of that tax onto our employers - ultimately, the pockets of the 54. We'd be individually responsible for our own share of that tax claw back, and so there'd be 20 million or so tax inspectors making damn sure the companies can't avoid this one.

Don't tax the rich - tax the poor, until the rich cry.