When we take out private insurance for our homes, possessions or holidays, we expect to pay more the more we have to lose. So why not with payments that protect the fabric of our societies, with payments that ensure our society functions efficiently: a payment we call tax?
Who has most to lose if society and our economies become unstable? Who has most to lose if the population is unskilled and poorly educated or unhealthy and unable to work? Who has most to lose if our communication networks (roads, rail, airports and telecommunications including the internet) fall apart, become unreliable and insecure? Who has most to lose if the police can’t protect their property and combat organised crime and fraud?
The answer to all these questions is, of course, those with most capital invested in the system.
Whilst they may not use state funded schools for their children, the super rich still rely on them to provide a skilled workforce to produce returns on investments in high value goods and services. Likewise, the buying power of customers is dependent on good salaries which are generated by an effective state education system. Returns on investments in stocks and shares and pension funds are dependent on an educated population, not just an educated few.
Similarly they may not use NHS services but an unhealthy population is less efficient and, in the worst case scenario, the spread of a deadly epidemic will have maximum impact on those who rely most on workers being able to work – those with investments in stocks and shares and pension funds, the value of which would crash.
And the super wealthy totally rely on safe and secure infrastructure that allows them (for leisure and business pursuits) and the goods and services their investments rely on, to move around safely. No one in their right mind would place their investments in failed, or a nearly failing state.
So why do the main parties find it so hard to argue the moral case for a proper wealth tax? Why are Labour only prepared to tinker at the edges with a Mansion Tax, while the Tories are obsessed with reducing the contribution the wealthy make towards protecting the systems that protect their wealth? Why have they come to see tax as a dirty word?
Green Party tax policy is rooted in fairness. The super rich should pay more tax because they can afford it better than most and it will have no impact on their standards of living. It is fair. But taxing the super rich is also a moral imperative because they benefit the most from government spending.
Our Wealth tax would tax all assets over £3m at a rate of about 1.5% (the exact amount is yet to be decided). £3m of assets, assuming an average profit of 5% p.a, produces £150,000 p.a. At 1.5%, £45,000 would be payable in tax each year. Having calculated there are about 300,000 people in this country with assets of £3m+ this tax would raise about £35bn.
This alone would go a long way to tackling the deficit, with no cuts to the services we all rely on and that the wealthy rely on most of all. Add to that a financial transaction tax and a crackdown on tax avoidance and it really is clear the Green Party stand for a different way of doing things.
Simply put, tax, at whatever rate it is paid, is a form of social insurance and the premium should reflect the sum insured. It’s fair, it’s moral and it’s Green Party policy: for our Common Good.
JANE BURNET. Green Party Parliamentary Candidate, South Dorset. November 2014
