The case for a progressive annual wealth tax in the UK

Benjamin Tippet, Ozlem Onaran, Rafael Wildauer

Research output: Book/ReportReport

Abstract

This paper analyses the revenue potential of a progressive annual net wealth tax in the UK. A progressive net wealth tax is a tax on the stock of net wealth that is designed to raise revenues primarily from the wealthiest households. We present a baseline progressive net wealth tax that only taxes the top 1% wealthiest households. Households with net wealth above £3.4 million (the top 1%) are taxed at a marginal rate of 1%; above £5.7 million (the top 0.5%) at a marginal rate of 5% and above £18.2 million (the top 0.1%) at a marginal rate of 10%. We estimate that this tax would raise roughly £70-130 billion a year after administration costs and tax avoidance/evasion: £70 billion if 50% of the tax is evaded and £130 billion if 15% of the tax is evaded. This is equivalent to roughly 9-16% of total tax revenues taken by the UK government each year.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Publication series

NamePEGFA Policy Brief

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