We could get behind this Zack Polanski bloke, you know?

It is always a grand error to actually take politicians seriously but just for the giggles let us do so with the new Leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski. His insistence is:

“Tax wealth, not work!”

OK. The current muttering about that wealth tax of 2% over £10 million is that it will raise £10 to £20 billion annually. Or there’s that abomination proposed by Advani and Summers at CenTax of 5% of all wealth - to include pensions, housing equity and everything for all - which will raise £250 billion over 5 years. Not that either would raise such sums but let us just go with the phantasms for the moment.

So, £10 to £50 billion a year. Current taxes upon work are income tax and national insurance (both types, employers’ and employees’) which raise £305 billion and £171 billion per year apparently. So, we drop the tax on work - because the insistence is “not work” - and we the populace gain £476 billion a year to fructify in our pockets. At the cost of that £10 to £50 billion out of our other pocket. This makes us, the general public out here, between £466 and £426 billion a year better off.

This is, roughly, one third off the size of the British state, or at least one third off the revenue it insists on stuffing into its maw. A little under-ambitious we feel, half, a full 50% off, the burden would be a better target.

But it’s still a plan we could get behind. We’d also hope for a role in which third gets slashed and can we pitch for the job of handing out the P45s? Direct and personal like?

Hmm, what’s that? That’s not what Zack means? He wants to tax wealth and work?

Well, we did say that taking politicians seriously was a grand error, didn’t we?

Tim Worstall