{"id":11478,"date":"2026-07-28T16:55:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/?p=11478"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:55:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:55:46","slug":"wealth-tax-comes-around-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/newsletter\/wealth-tax-comes-around-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Wealth tax comes around again"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- wp:themify-builder\/canvas \/-->\n\n<p><b>Talk of a wealth tax has returned as another difficult Autumn Budget looms.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was much talk of a wealth tax to fill the hole that had been created in the government\u2019s coffers. At the end of 2020, a Wealth Tax Commission, independent of the government, published a report drawing on extensive tax, legal and economic research. The Commission deliberately avoided making any specific recommendations, but the variant that received the most attention was:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A 5% one-off tax would apply to individual wealth exceeding \u00a3500,000. An annual tax was considered but dismissed as administratively difficult and costly.<\/li>\n<li>The definition of wealth had no exceptions \u2013 it included homes, businesses and pensions, wherever located.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>While the tax was a one-off, there would be an option to pay it in interest-bearing instalments over five years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Commission calculated that, at the time, such a structure would produce \u00a3260 billion of tax \u2013 \u00a352 billion a year plus interest. To put that into perspective, total government debt in April 2026 was \u00a32,943 billion (and \u00a32,155 billion at the end of 2020\/21).<\/p>\n<p>The proposals of the Wealth Tax Commission were not taken up by Rishi Sunak, either as Chancellor or Prime Minister. His chosen tax-raising measures were increased corporation tax and freezes in tax bands and allowances, which his successors have turned into something close to permafrost.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, the Green Party favours an annual wealth tax of 1% for assets above \u00a310 million, rising to 2% on assets above \u00a32 billion. Wes Streeting has proposed a \u201cwealth tax that works\u201d, by which he means aligning capital gains tax (CGT) rates with income tax. How much either \u2018wealth tax\u2019 would raise is uncertain because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is no detailed data on individual wealth. The Green Party has suggested their idea could raise \u00a315 billion a year, but commentators have questioned the figure.<\/li>\n<li>Much depends on how a small number of extremely wealthy people will react to any change. For example, the most recent figures for CGT show that in 2023\/24 just 10,000 people (2.8% of CGT taxpayers) accounted for 64% of CGT paid.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Planning for a tax or tax change that does not exist is generally to be avoided. It is better to concentrate on the tax rules as they are rather than end up making a pre-emptive mistake. For proof, look at those people who rushed to draw their pension lump sum before the last two Budgets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Tax treatment varies according to individual circumstances and is subject to change.<br \/><\/i><\/b><b><i>The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate tax advice.<\/i><\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talk of a wealth tax has returned as another difficult Autumn Budget looms. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was much talk of a wealth tax to fill the hole that had been created in the government\u2019s coffers. At the end of 2020, a Wealth Tax Commission, independent of the government, published a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":33,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11481,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions\/11481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbwm.uk\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}