After all the debacle around winter fuel payments, the welfare reforms, the two-child benefit cap, the £28billion green investment promise and now, maybe the non-dom issue, team Starmer/Reeves have made more U-turns than a dodgem at the fun fair!
With the exodus of non-doms from the UK, it is evident that the Treasury simply doesn’t understand the financial dynamics of cosmopolitan London, particularly as it applies to these wealthy weather makers. Foolishly, in their forecast, the OBR thought that this measure would raise £6-9billion for the Treasury but actually, this will be a net cost.
Under pressure from the City, Reeves is now considering moderating the more draconian elements of the non-dom changes, so-as-to stem the tide of these wealth creators.
If the UK is to attract inward investment, this is the antithesis of what a competent government should do.
Having upset pensioners, farmers, industry and Labour backbenchers, hey ho, the U-turns have now left a £30billion black hole in the UK accounts, if they are to keep to their ‘fiscal rules’.
And what do you imagine that ‘Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee’ are cooking up for the upper middle classes in the autumn Budget? Yes, you guessed it, let’s slap on a nice hefty wealth tax of 2% above £10million… you couldn’t make it up.
Lord (Windbag) Kinnock, if anyone remembers, was sent to Europe to be the whistleblower of the gluttonous expenses enjoyed by the MEPs but ended up ‘turning turtle’ by joining the feeding frenzy himself. Not only did he stuff his saddlebags with riches but encouraged his wife and son to join the fray. Why not? It’s a jamboree after all!
Bless him, he is strongly advocating a wealth tax which is drawn directly from politics of envy and let’s face it, kicking the rich is a very gratifying sport to the left-wing zealots of the Labour Party.
Hasn’t the government learnt anything from the non-dom disaster?
As we all know, there is nothing more mobile than the fabulously rich and they have not hesitated to ‘pick up sticks’ and take their wealth to other more welcoming fiscal climes abroad.
I am going to scream if I hear the overused expression ‘let the broadest shoulders bear the most burden’! Lest we forget, 1% of the taxpayers pay 30% of the total tax take and there cannot be anything more fiscally progressive than this.
Yes, the ‘asset owners’ have gained wealth over time (made up of property and shares), but this applies to all demographic groups, not just the uber wealthy.
A wealth tax was introduced in France and ignominiously abolished in 2018. In Germany it was repealed in 1997 and in Sweden 2007. The main reason for its failure in all of these countries is that it drove wealthy individuals to leave, and it was too costly to manage, whilst generating very low revenue for the respective Treasuries.
In fact, in France, 12,000 millionaires left between 2000 and 2016, and you would think ‘Rachel from Accounts’, would know this.
Whilst Switzerland do have sustainable modest wealth tax, the balance of their taxes, i.e., Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Income Tax, are either very low or non-existent.
The German courts ruled that the wealth tax violated the principal of equal taxation.
And despite all of this, the ‘goons’ Starmer/Reeves are seriously contemplating this measure as their ‘get out of jail’ card, in the autumn Budget … go figure!
The ‘tin-eared’ Mr Starmer has lurched from one self-induced crisis to another and according to Sir John Curtis – the pollster extraordinaire – he occupies the greatest level of disillusionment over time – at minus 43% – since polling records began and as we speak, is trawling new depths of disgruntlement.
By the looks of things, he doesn’t communicate with the rest of his Party very well, he is never in the ‘tearoom’ canvassing opinion from his colleagues but instead, locks himself in a bunker with his henchman, Morgan McSweeney, no doubt plotting the next debacle.
In the autumn, the government is likely to break its manifesto pledge on taxation, which will ensure that it upsets all the demographic groups, not just some of them, as at present.
If you thought that the Tories were inept, the Labour Party, under our Prime Minister, is in a class of its own, in this respect. If it wasn’t so serious you could laugh, but the stench of failure is ubiquitous.
Back at the ranch, at Glentree, using our specialist skills, we have managed to sell £60million of residential property in the last three months. Having weathered four recessions already, we have the experience of circumnavigating the many obstacles that exist in this sector. Having said this, I can tell you that it isn’t easy trading without a feel-good factor, which the government has shown a great propensity to extinguish.
We are seasoned veterans in this business and although our brethren in the estate agency industry are moaning and groaning, primarily due to the plummeting number of deals, our canny buyers see it as an opportunity to purchase plum residential properties, on the cheap.
Can you blame them?