Would a 'wealth tax' work in Britain and could it help pay off the huge coronavirus debt?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2020

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, a new in-depth report from the Wealth Tax Commission recommended a one-off 'wealth tax' on the richest households rather than hiking taxes for the masses.

It comes as the national debt has spiralled this year as the Government spent more than £280billion tackling the pandemic and its financial fallout, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak claiming the 'economic emergency' has only just begun.

How would it work, could it be a good idea and how unpopular would it prove? Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost take a look.

Elsewhere, millions of mortgage payment holidays have been handed out since March - an agreement with lenders to help homeowners during the coronavirus crisis.

But for one couple who extended the payment holiday, it turned into a credit report headache when they looked to downsize.

In the property market, a new report suggests that stamp duty savings are now being wiped out by house price gains in recent months.

Should investors run to the hills if one of the companies that you are invested in or are tempted by has a big pension scheme?

And lastly, we give yet another update on the port fiasco in Britain, with the perfect storm of coronavirus, Brexit and Christmas.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money Podcast. I'm Georgie Frost and alongside me and editor Simon Lambert today is
0:05.8	Assistant Editor Lee Boyce. And coming up, a wealth tax on millionaire households rather than hike
0:11.9	income tax for the masses to deal with the corona crisis. A good idea or could it massively
0:17.2	backfire? Beware mortgage holidays,ions have taken them, but are they risking
0:21.8	even bigger problems in the future? Meanwhile, the stamp duty holiday has proven a false
0:27.2	economy, as Halifax say house prices have stripped even the biggest savings. Also today, could
0:32.8	a pension black hole sink your investments and we revisit the crisis at the ports. Don't be getting
0:38.5	stuff today. With all the latest breaking money news, just go to this ismoney.co.uk or download
0:44.0	the app. But first, the economic emergency has only just begun, according to the Chancellor.
0:50.7	National debt has spiraled as the government has spent more than £280 billion
0:54.8	pounds tackling the virus so far and its financial fallout. Now, the big white elephant in
1:00.3	the room is, how the heck are we going to pay for all this? Well, one suggestion is a one-off
1:05.0	wealth tax on the richest households rather than hiking taxes for the masses. Now that's the finding of a new
1:12.0	in-depth report from the wealth tax commission. Simon, tell us more. Right. So we have the
1:18.4	wealth tax commission. I bet you can't guess what they're in favour of. A wealth tax? Yes.
1:26.1	Well done, everybody. Five points to you minus 1% of five points because
1:31.5	that's your wealth tax for getting the answer right. The wealth tax commission would like
1:36.4	a wealth tax. It says that we need to pay the bill for the coronavirus crisis. I mean,
1:41.8	this does presume that we are actually going to pay the bill for the
1:44.8	coronavirus crisis and balance the books. I must say that we should make that point before we start
1:50.0	out, because at the moment, what's actually paying the bill is the Bank of England printing money.
1:55.6	And countries around the world have been indulging in this, either individually or as a collective
	...

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