THE BRIEFING Tax
One of Arun Advani’s roles includes an appointment Budget Responsibility
MR WEALTH TAX Academic Arun Advani is the man with this government’s
ear when it comes to numbers – but will a wealth tax be a step too far for Labour? By Charles Orton-Jones
THE OVERTON WINDOW is a political concept that describes the narrow range of ideas that are open for public debate. Whether we should send more tanks to Ukraine, for example, is up for discussion. On the other hand, asking the Coldstream Guards to go in and retake Crimea is not even up for discussion. In recent memory, the prospect of
levying a wealth tax in the UK has been sitting just outside the window. There’s never been a recurring wealth tax here. The last serious proposal was by the 1974 Labour government, which pledged an annual levy on the rich, but it was abandoned by then-chancellor Denis Healey, who said: ‘In five years I found it impossible to draſt one which would yield
enough revenue to be worth the administrative cost and political hassle.’ Only three OECD nations impose a wealth
tax – Spain, Norway and Switzerland – each in a minor way with many exemptions. But the window can shiſt. Lately wealth
taxes have been creeping into newspaper columns and podcasts. The lobby group Tax Justice UK found 30 economists to sign a letter calling for a tax of 1-2 per cent on assets of more than £10 million, which it was claimed would raise £22 billion a year. Former City trader turned campaigner Gary Stevenson broadcasts his demands for a wealth tax to his 1.4 million YouTube subscribers. The Green Party, Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Equality Trust are in support. An early day motion in the House
of Commons in the summer, asking for a tax of 2 per cent on assets over £10 million, was signed by 31 MPs. The man doing more than anyone to drag the window leſtwards is Arun Advani. A professor of economics at the University of Warwick and one of two directors of the recently created Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax), Advani is giving new life to the idea. While others deal in catchphrases, he is doing the research. And he has a track record of turning ideas into policy. It was Advani who first suggested removing inheritance tax relief on farms, which is now government policy (see p38). He was an advocate for inheritance tax changes for non-doms, also adopted by the chancellor. He’s seen as persuasive and moderate – not least in his view that annual wealth taxes usually don’t work. In 2020 Advani created the Wealth Tax Commission with Andy Summers of the LSE and barrister Emma Chamberlain. The trio acknowledged that annual wealth taxes are costly to administer, create economic anomalies and can be self-defeating (as the rich flee). Their solution was a one-off wealth tax that would be levied on the value of an individual’s assets, as assessed on a particular date. Those affected could pay off the sum over subsequent years. The Commission claimed a one-off
wealth tax of 5 per cent payable on all individual wealth above £500,000 (charged at 1 per cent a year for five years) would raise £260 billion; at a threshold of £2 million, it would raise £80 billion. The report is now a core text of the
wealth tax debate. It also marked the entry of Advani into the mainstream media, with columns in the Guardian and New Statesman, plus podcast interviews and even an appearance on BBC farming show Countryfile to talk tax. An academic with impeccable
credentials, Advani (who declined to be interviewed for this article) graduated with a first in economics from Cambridge in 2009, then went on to a PhD at UCL and a professorship at Warwick. He’s won at least 25 research grants, including £2 million from the state fund UK Research & Innovation and £1 million from the Economic and Social Research Council. He’s prolific, both in the quantity of his output and astonishing variety of his guest
ALAMY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116
