As the 2025 budget approaches, it is becoming increasingly clear that the burden of an underfunded NHS, underappreciated education system, and an undervalued social care system will be felt most, yet again, by the working- and middle-class taxpayers. In the 2022/23 fiscal period, the poorest 10% of households paid on average 48% of their income to tax, compared to billionaire James Dyson who paid just 0.68% of his total wealth in tax in 2024. It does not have to be this way.
For too long the burden of our public services has been forced on the working people, squeezing them of their cash and their hope. To quote the pressure group Patriotic Millionaires: “The country deserves proper investment; what better way to do this than through taxing the richest people?” Billionaire wealth surged three times faster in 2024, with the world on track for at least five trillionaires within a decade. It is a total disgrace and a damning indictment on the state of this country that such wealth can be accumulated whilst our public services crumble.
Why is it only the rich who are getting richer whilst our poorest citizens see their living standards consistently fall? Simply applying a 2% tax on assets over £10 million could raise up to £24 billion a year for our public services. To put that into perspective, that is £1.4 billion less than the government thinks it would take to deliver an extra 40,000 NHS appointments a year, which would reduce waitlists and save lives.
Moreover, this tax increase would only affect the wealthiest 20,000 people—or just 0.04% of the UK’s population. With such a small number of people affected, and with such great benefits to the country, one must ask, is it that the government is scared to lose investment or is that Starmer is scared that this will not be consistent with his pandering to the far right? I firmly believe it is the latter.
However, some argue that the idea of a wealth tax is just leftist idealism taking over, and not an economic necessity. One strand of this argument is that if you implement a wealth tax, millionaires will leave this country and take their investments elsewhere. Often, people on this side of the argument will point to the “exodus” of millionaires in 2024, when it was widely reported that 9,500 millionaires left the UK due to Labour’s changes of the non-dom tax rules.
Firstly, one can point to this argument as disputed, as this only represents 0.03% of millionaires (hardly an exodus), and when one, again, considers the fact that 65% of UK millionaires support a wealth tax of 2%. This argument is also increasingly being shown as more of a media narrative than a true “exodus”, with the Tax Justice Network finding that seven high-profile millionaires leaving the UK were mentioned three times more in the media than the pro-tax millionaire campaigns, which represent hundreds of millionaires. Finally, the exodus of millionaires can be disputed by the fact that just 0.01% of the richest households left Norway, Sweden, and Denmark following the introduction of a wealth tax in those countries.
Practicalities aside, there is clear and obvious hunger among both the general public and political parties to implement a wealth tax, which would create both equity and well-resourced public services in this country. Leading the charge, Green Party leader Zack Polanski is fighting relentlessly for a 1% tax on wealth over £10 million and 2% over £1 billion, which will aim to raise £14.8 billion a year. He also argues for aligning rates of capital gains tax with income tax, so that work is not taxed more than wealth, which they state will raise at least £12 billion a year.
These tax rises alone could raise a quarter of the funds needed to nationalise the water industry, which could save £3 billion a year, allowing for the prices that consumers pay to be lowered, alleviating the cost-of-living crisis. Polanski rightfully states that “bold choices” like these will positively affect the lives of ordinary people as people are “angry” and “deserve better”. Surprisingly, though, when polled, 61% of people who are considering voting for Reform UK support a one-off tax on households with a wealth greater than £10 million.
In fact, 75% of Britons support the same wealth tax reforms that the Green Party are advocating for. This is further supported by the pressure group Patriotic Millionaires, who are a collective of 80+ British millionaires who argue they want to be taxed more to fund public services. Clearly there is political hunger for a wealth tax, so why does Rachel Reeves feel that repeating the recipe for disaster that is austerity will help this country?
A wealth tax is the only way for us to ensure we still have a free-at-thepoint-of-access NHS, and it is the only way we can stop private enterprise from ruining our public services in the same way they did with PFI hospitals. Austerity has failed. This is evident in its forcing of 2.6 million children into absolute poverty in just the UK alone.
In 2022, even 57% of Tory voters believed it had failed. In stark contrast, however, there appears to be a cross-party consensus among voters that a wealth tax is the future, with 61% of Reform, 93% of Green, 70% of Conservative, 87% of Labour, and 80% of Lib Dem 2024 voters all supporting a wealth tax. My message and, it appears, the majority of voters’ message to this Labour government is simple: introduce a wealth tax.
Use these funds to improve our public services. How can a country be expected to prosper if its education and healthcare systems are on their knees? Choose your legacy: the government who continued politically enforced poverty through austerity or the government who secured our United Kingdom’s future through a wealth tax.
Tax wealth, not work, and help wealthy and working people alike flourish through well-funded public services and economic equity.