UK - Tax the super-rich !

This could alternatively be in Non-US Politics or Economics, Business and Finance - Mods feel free to move as required.

There is a suspicion that the super rich (both individuals and companies) manage to get away with a lot when it comes to taxation. This is vehemently denied by the tax authorities but this report on the BBC website caught my eye.

Quote:

The taxman's failure to get tough with the super-rich risks undermining confidence in the whole system, MPs warned in a report on Friday. HM Revenue and Customs must avoid the impression it has "one rule for the rich and another for everyone else," the Public Accounts Committee said. In a scathing report, PAC chairwoman Meg Hillier said HMRC's claims about its success "just don't stack up".

Naturally, HMRC deny that this is the case, but in an era or rising income and wealth inequality where a greater and greater proportion of the nation's income and wealth is flowing into the pockets of a small group of people, I found this statistic illuminating:

Quote:

Since HMRC set up a specialist unit dealing with so-called high net worth individuals in 2009, the amount of income tax they paid had fallen by £1bn, the report said. This was despite income tax receipts from the public as a whole rising by £23bn over the same period.

Now this could represent a change in the way that the super-rich are making money, less in terms of income, more in more tax-efficient ways:

Quote:

But while HMRC said this had resulted in the collection of an additional £2bn in tax. it was unable to explain why the income tax they paid fell by 20% - from £4.5bn in 2009-10 to £3.5bn in 2014-15 - when the overall income tax take rose by 9% £23bn.

I wouldn't be shocked to find a similar story with respect to corporate taxation as well.

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via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2kAg4vj