Readers respond to an editorial calling for a fairer tax system to maintain social stability
You are right that wealth needs to be taxed more fairly (Editorial, 23 May), but the proposed solution from Tax Justice UK that you promote is too simplistic. Taxing assets above £10m sounds a nice way to restrict the pain to a very small number of people, hence its 78% support among the public. But the experience of other countries is that a wealth tax on the super-rich simply doesn’t work (the IFS has many excellent articles on the subject).
Wealth does need to be taxed more fairly, and equalising capital gains tax with income tax would be a good start – easy to administer and yielding significant revenues. Making council tax fairer would result in a massive redistribution of wealth. And middle-income earners – the biggest segment of taxpayers – will need to pay higher taxes.
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