“People like me should pay more, it’s as simple as that.”
Green industrialist and major Labour Party donor Dale Vince has renewed calls for the chancellor to raise taxes on the “super rich” in the upcoming Budget.
Vince, who says he ranks among the “top 100 tax payers in Britain,” argues he should be paying more.
The founder of the renewable energy company Ecotricity is joined by lawyer Stephen Kinsella, a fellow member of the campaign group Patriotic Millionaires UK. The group is urging for a 2 percent levy on wealth above £10 million. Kinsella said he joined because “most of us want to live in a fairer society,” adding, “either I will pay it, or somebody else will pay it.”
Dale Vince noted the “great disparity in our country between people who can’t feed themselves and people who have a great deal of wealth,” blaming the tax system for creating and entrenching inequality.
“People like me should pay more, it’s as simple as that,” he said.
Patriotic Millionaires UK is a growing network of more than 80 wealthy individuals who work to influence media and political debate. Founding member Gary Stevenson, a former City trader turned inequality economist, has helped steer its campaigns.
In September, the group joined civil society organisations and independent think-tanks in urging the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to tighten political finance rules.
Ahead of the Autumn Budget on 26 November, the group’s ‘battlebus’ has been touring the country calling for a wealth tax.
Rachel Reeves has appeared to rule out a specific tax on wealth. At the Labour Party conference in September, she told Bloomberg TV: “We already have taxes on wealthy people; I don’t think we need a standalone wealth tax.”
Image: Patriotic Millionaires – X screen grab
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