On Wednesday the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak revealed how much tax he pays.
Sunak brought in £2 million in 2021 to 2022 – mostly from dividends and capital gains. He paid £432,000 tax on this income. This makes the PM’s effective tax rate 22%. That’s the same tax rate as the average nurse making £37,000 a year, as our Executive Director pointed out on Twitter. This is simply incredible. And it shows precisely what’s wrong with our tax system: the super rich take most of their income from wealth, not work. And taxes on income from wealth are much lower than taxes on work. “The system is designed to allow wealthy people to pay lower rates of tax”, we told The Times. What we’re proposing is simple. We want the same rates of tax on income across the board, regardless of its source. So those bringing in £2 million from dividend income should pay the same as those bringing in £2 million from work. If this were the case, Rishi Sunak’s tax rate would be much higher. If we applied the same rules to every super rich person in the UK, we’d raise £14 billion pounds every year. The value of shares, property and gold have hit new highs in the last year. It’s only a cost of living crisis if you don’t own a lot of assets. Food prices skyrocket While the Prime Minister's tax return gives a snapshot into how the super rich are doing financially, the cost of living crisis is getting worse for everyone else. The cost of food has increased by 18% since last year, new inflation figures show. Goods and services generally are up 10%. The skyrocketing cost of the weekly shop is bad for everyone, and is pushing many who were already struggling into poverty. The number of children in food poverty in the UK has doubled this year to 4 million. This is unacceptable. The UK is a rich country, but wealth is increasingly hoarded by a small number of super rich people. While wages have stagnated over the last 15 years for everyone else. Budget: tax breaks for big business and wealthy do nothing to ease the cost of living crisis15/3/2023
A Budget that gives a £9 billion tax break to the biggest businesses and a multibillion pensions tax giveaway to higher earners is the wrong approach in the middle of a cost of living crisis.
Tax Justice UK Executive Director, Robert Palmer, said: “Jeremy Hunt tells NHS workers that we can’t afford to give them a pay rise during this cost of living crisis. Yet he just handed out a £9 billion tax break to the biggest businesses and promised a multibillion pension tax giveaway to the highest earners”. “Thousands of NHS workers are using foodbanks, there won’t be a single nurse with £60,000 a year spare to take advantage of the Chancellor's pension tax giveaway”. “The 12 new investment zones look like being glorified business parks - they tend to shuffle activity around the country rather than generate new enterprise.” “The Chancellor’s measures on child care are welcome, but tax breaks for the well off and big corporations are not the answer to our cost of living crisis”. “Jermey Hunt calls this his growth budget, but you can't have sustainable growth if our workers are getting sicker, can't get to work or have trouble accessing essential public services. We need greater investment in our NHS and public services now. Politicians should be taxing wealth not pouring more fuel onto the wealth inequalities that already exist in our society.” A Tax Justice UK briefing shared with MPs ahead of the Budget set out six wealth tax policies that could raise up to £50 billion towards rebuilding the NHS and public services. The briefing includes a proposal for a 2% annual wealth tax on people with £10 million in assets. This policy alone could raise £22 billion 
An opinion poll by YouGov for Tax Justice UK has found overwhelming public support for an annual tax on extreme wealth ahead of this week’s Budget.
77 per cent of Brits said they would support a 1% annual wealth tax on people with more than £10 million in personal wealth; 74% said they would support a 2% annual tax on people with more than £10 million in personal wealth. Tax Justice UK Executive Director, Robert Palmer, said: “The NHS and public services are on their knees, but the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, government keeps saying we can’t afford to pay workers properly. “There is an alternative. The government could raise £22 billion alone by applying a 2% tax on the wealth of the richest people in the country. “And this latest poll shows that this would be popular with the public. Jeremy Hunt should use the opportunity of next week’s budget to tax wealth and start rebuilding our public services.” The full polling tables can be downloaded here. A Tax Justice UK briefing shared with MPs ahead of the Budget sets out six wealth tax policies that could raise up to £50 billion towards rebuilding the NHS and public services. The briefing includes a proposal for a 2% annual wealth tax on people with £10 million in assets. This policy alone could raise £22 billion. The revenue predicted from the proposed wealth tax differs from our previous calculation as a consequence of increasing the tax rate from 1% to 2%. 
Senior Conservatives are again loudly calling for tax cuts in the upcoming budget on 15 March. Three in five Conservative party members want the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to prioritize tax cuts. Right leaning newspapers are pushing this agenda as well.
Many Conservative backbenchers argue that slashing corporation tax would boost growth. There’s little evidence for this. We’ve had low corporate taxes for the last decade. At the same time our economy has stalled – pay has stagnated and the cost of living has increased. A corporate tax cut would mainly result in soaring corporate bank balances – this at a time when many companies are reporting record earnings already. As the 15 March budget approaches, we need to resist calls for tax cuts that benefit big corporations and push for higher taxes on the super rich instead. Our NHS needs more resources Not only are these calls for tax cuts reckless – we all remember what happened when Liz Truss tried it last time – they also ignore the state our NHS and public services are in. Our teachers, doctors and ambulance staff are going on strike. Nurses are using foodbanks. Our NHS is in the middle of one of its worst crises ever. These services are floundering. They urgently need more resources, not less. The government needs to provide more funding – and that should come from those with the deepest pockets. That’s why we’ve been pushing a range of wealth taxes that could raise up to £37 billion a year. This money could be the lifeline our struggling NHS and public services need. |
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Registered Address: C/O Godfrey Wilson, Mariner House, 62 Prince St, Bristol BS1 4QD
Tax Justice UK is a partner of (but independent from) the Tax Justice Network
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions for using this website
Equality and Diversity Statement
If you have concerns about Tax Justice UK, you can make a complaint using this email address complaints@taxjustice.uk.
This website is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence
Tax Justice UK campaigns for a better tax system to benefit everyone in the UK.
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