We have to say that we’re really very impressed by this:
More than 250 billionaires and millionaires are demanding that the political elite meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos introduce wealth taxes to help pay for better public services around the world.
“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the wealthy people said in an open letter to world leaders. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”
The rich signatories from 17 countries include Disney heir Abigail Disney; Brian Cox who played fictional billionaire Logan Roy in Succession; actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg;
Given the absence of actual billionaires on their list they’ve called in an actor who plays one on TV. Most impressive we call that.
This is even more impressive:
A new poll of the super-rich shows that 74% support higher taxes on wealth to help address the cost of living crisis and improve public services. A survey, conducted by Survation on behalf of campaign group Patriotic Millionaires, polled more than 2,300 respondents from G20 countries who hold more than $1m (£790,000) in investable assets, excluding their homes – putting them in the richest 5%.
The polling found that 58% supported the introduction of a 2% wealth tax on people with more than $10m, and that 54% thought that extreme wealth was a threat to democracy.
If you ask fairly rich people whether the people richer than thou should be taxed they say yes. This is not, we’d just like to quibble, the same as asking the fairly rich people whether fairly rich people should be taxed more. Nor is it the same as asking rich people whether rich people should be taxed more. For what is actually being asked is “Assuming that you’re left alone should these other folk have to pay more tax?”
We really do insist that the answer to the other question “Should you be taxed more?” has a high likelihood of getting to a different answer.
In fact, one of us investigated this 18 years back. The first in the UK to do so even. We found that in the year we asked about 5 people paid more tax than was legally due by offering an additional amount to the Treasury. Four of those were dead too. Others have done the numbers for different years and they’ve not changed very much.
It is possible in both the US and UK to simply pay more tax. Send in a cheque. You’ll even get a thank you letter. It is also true that often enough there is a difference between expressed preferences and revealed preferences - economists like to insist that it’s the revealed, what people actually do, that tells us what people really want or are willing to do.
So, as we said that near two decades back:
When the tax’n’spend brigade show us their thank-you notes, we should listen: until then we should ignore them and insist that our money remains, fructifying, in our pockets.
In the absence of those proofs of higher payment we have to conclude that the Patriotic Millionaires are - what’s that American word we’re looking for, ah, yes, that’s it - blowhards.