Live Scotonomics Special With Professor Richard Murphy - The Wealth Report Discussion

19th April 2024

The video is almost 53 minutes but well worth watching if you really want to understand wealth, taxes and debt.

This month marks the start of a new tax year, during which we will inevitably have a new government.

To mark this event Professor Murphey has published the Taxing Wealth Report 2024.

This report seeks to answer the question that everyone loves to ask of every politician, which is ‘how are you going to pay for it?'

What we know is that Labour is acting as if it still believes Liam Byrne's 2010 claim that ‘there is no money left'.

In the Taxing Wealth Report, I show that by making up to thirty relatively simple changes to existing UK taxes, up to £90 billion of new tax revenue could be raised a year, entirely from those who are well off or who are straightforwardly wealthy.

The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 explains how by making up to 30 relatively simple changes to the UK tax system up to £92 billion of additional tax and more than £100 billion of funds for investment could be made available to fund public services in the UK - which is more than any politician could imagine that they need.

The aim is threefold. First, the Report proves that the claim that 'there is no money left' is wrong. Second, it shows that the wealthy and well-off in the UK really are undertaxed. Third, it shows that solving the problem of funding the society that we need is not hard to achieve.

Some of the suggestions made, and the amounts that they might raise in additional tax, are as follows:

1) Charging capital gains to tax at the same rate as income tax would raise £12 billion of extra tax per annum.

2) Restricting the rate of tax relief on pensions to the basic rate of income tax, whatever tax rate a person pays, would raise £14.5 billion of extra tax per annum.

3) Charging VAT on the supply of financial services, which are inevitably consumed by the best off, could raise £8.7 bn of extra tax per annum.

4) Charging an investment income surcharge of 15% on income above a tax free level (which could be set much higher for pensioners) earned from interest, dividends, rents and other sources might raise £18 bn of extra tax per annum. Lower rates could, of course, be charged.

5) Charging national insurance at the same rate on all earned income, whatever its amount above the existing minimum, might raise up to £12.5 bn of extra tax per annum.

6) Investing £1 billion in HMRC so that it might collect all tax owing by the UK's 5 million or so companies when 30% of that sum goes unpaid at present might raise £12 billion per annum.

In addition, the report suggests that if the tax incentives for saving in ISAs and pensions were changed so that all new ISA funds and 25% of all new pension contributions were required to be saved in ways that might help fund new infrastructure projects in the UK, including those linked to climate change, then up to £100 billion of funds might be made available for that purpose a year.

Many people in the UK fear that Labour might form a new government this year but will not change anything because of its commitment to harsh fiscal rules that promise more austerity. The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 shows that this austerity is not necessary. The existing tax system only needs to be made a bit fairer, and the funding required to transform our society would be available.

The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 is available at https://taxingwealth.uk/

ABOUT RICHARD MURPHY - The Author
Richard Murphy is Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School. He directs the Funding the Future blog. He is a political economist and was a practising chartered accountant for forty years.

The video with transcript HERE

Listen To A podcast introducing the report

Richard Murphy's blog Funding the Future

Taxing Wealth Report 2024
Pdf 440 Pages

For a summary and breakdown of the report go HERE