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I haven't opened a new bank account in over a quarter of a century, but this sounds fucking brilliant - no more rummaging: the POWER.. Sign me up!


Keir Starmer

@Keir_Starmer

It’s frustrating having to rummage around in a drawer, looking for an old electricity bill just to open a new bank account.

Digital ID will make our lives easier.

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1981412929762099673

Keir Starmer there courting the over 90s who don't get electronic bills.

Interesting Venn Diagram of over 90s who can get and want a digital ID and are needing to create bank accounts but can't access electronic bills.

Also, if the bill has to be from the last three months, why would you need to rummage through drawers? Whoever writes these tweets is a dullard.

'The Green Party's proposal for a wealth tax on 1% of assets above £10m and 2% on assets above £1bn comes top of our list of tax reforms that Britons would support, with 75% giving it their backing.

93% of Green voters and 87% of Labour voters and 80% of LD voters back a wealth tax on the richest. Even 70% of Tory and 61% of Reform voters in favour

https://x.com/YouGov/status/1981319728174928268
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/YouGov_-_Tax_reforms.pdf

I support a wealth tax, so long as it is combined with reductions on income tax/National Insurance, particularly for lower income workers. What it cannot be is an opportunity to just soak people more.

One of the most important jobs of the government is to encourage economic activity. That means getting the incentives right.

Taxing work, particularly for those at the bottom of the income scale, is fucked up. It's basically discouraging the one thing we want more of.

So, like in Switzerland, we should have a modest wealth tax. And let's use that as an opportunity to fold NI and Income Tax together, and to reduce the burden on the lowest paid.

Problem is a wealth tax doesn’t work even in Switzerland it raises little to nothing.

Hardly "little to nothing". The Swiss a wealth tax raised CHF 9 billion in 2022, on a smaller economy than ours. It varies by canton and doesn't seem to have led to an exodus of plutocrats.

It closes the loopholes where the super-rich keep income down while inflating other assets.

https://kof.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/kof-bulletin/kof-bulletin/2024/07/wealth-tax-a-minimum-tax-on-the-rich.html

Prepare to wield the the POWER of compulsory ID

Keir Starmer
@Keir_Starmer
·
4m
Digital ID will be a huge help in tackling illegal immigration.

But it’s so much more than that.

It will empower people every single day by giving you a new way to prove who you are.

Saving time and money when you apply for a mortgage by cutting down unnecessary paperwork.

Proving your right to rent in one click.

Personalised public services like helping parents claim eligibility for free childcare and nursery places.

It is time to put power back in people’s hands and bring the UK into the modern age.

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1981405376458142013

Will it give us the power to check and amend our data and monitor who has been accessing it?

If not, it does not empower us. Quite the contrary.

I guess every generation has to have the same tedious ID card debate between the Home Office (who love the things) and everyone else (who hates them).

The government does not need ID cards to clamp down on the employment of immigrants without right to work - make it a criminal offence to do so, with that offence cutting through ltd liability cutout companies & you’d have an effective system to screen workers implemented in a heartbeat.

Until that happens, UberEats, Deliveroo et al will continue to benefit from people without work visas carrying out deliveries on their behalf through ltd liability companies nominally owned by the delivery contractors they engage to carry out deliveries.

Right now, those ltd companies carry all the liability but none of the power - we need to change that so that the execs at these huge multinationals have some skin in the game.

Same goes for all those employed on dodgy building sites - consistent enforcement of the existing rules would go a long way but the government has gutted local authority funding so this is way down their list of priorities.

I haven't opened a new bank account in over a quarter of a century, but this sounds fucking brilliant - no more rummaging: the POWER.. Sign me up!


Keir Starmer

@Keir_Starmer

It’s frustrating having to rummage around in a drawer, looking for an old electricity bill just to open a new bank account.

Digital ID will make our lives easier.

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1981412929762099673

Isn’t the bill used as proof of address, not identity?

Indeed.

Though 1 ID that can access and create anything? Sounds like a fraudsters wet dream.

Phish and get access to someone's digital ID and now you have access to everything. Wonderful!

Oh, but its by the government so it must be secure, fraudsters never take advantage of anything digital. 🤦‍♂️

'The Green Party's proposal for a wealth tax on 1% of assets above £10m and 2% on assets above £1bn comes top of our list of tax reforms that Britons would support, with 75% giving it their backing.

93% of Green voters and 87% of Labour voters and 80% of LD voters back a wealth tax on the richest. Even 70% of Tory and 61% of Reform voters in favour

https://x.com/YouGov/status/1981319728174928268
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/YouGov_-_Tax_reforms.pdf

How much would it raise in the first year? I assume tax evasion/avoidance/put the Stubbs in the lorry would kick in from year 2 onwards.

Yes, plenty of the rich affected would base themselves in Monaco, Switzerland, Dubai, Florida, the Bahamas, Singapore etc if such a tax came in

They can’t take their Knightsbridge townhouses with them

And so the wealth tax argument reaches it natural conclusion - the only part of wealth that can be easily taxed is land and property.

And we simply don’t tax property efficiently or enough

And it’s going to apply to far more people than just the so called super rich with ‘wealth’ in excess of £10 million.

The super rich may not be able to take their townhouses with them but they can sell them off. They don’t need to own an asset that may be a liability.

They also take their spending on food and drink both in shops and bars/restaurants, they stop employing their cleaner, driver, security, accountant, solicitors. They stop buying their clothes, watches and jewellery, art, furniture in London too so the shops that were selling these things need fewer staff or close. Those staff have to find jobs in possibly lower paid roles elsewhere and so cut down their spending.

So great, the people have stuck it to those rich bastards by raising their taxes. Unfortunately those rich bastards aren’t going to be paying those taxes in the UK anyway now, you’ve sucked spending out of the country. You’ve affected balance of payments because a lot of those people were making their money overseas and bringing it in to the UK as they were living there.

They were also keeping maybe an office in the UK, don’t need that now. They might be about to be setting up a spin-off of one of their businesses and liked the idea of having it based in the UK as they can gets hands on.

Now they are in Zurich, Dubai, wherever they might as well do it there and employ people there.

If they care about the arts or a particularl medical condition then they aren’t going to be donating to UK based charities and entities, won’t be supporting fundraisers in the UK, they will support where they are living.

Ultimately the country is poorer and some people might feel so much better for having kicked the rich but they are still rich, just not benefiting the UK.

Despite what you say, true patriots would, of course, just take the hit.

After all, it's not as if these millionaires and billionaires would be short of a bob or two if they had to pay1% or 2% extra tax on their wealth.

Indeed, they'd still be absolutely rolling in it in a way that the vast majority of us can barely imagine.

Whilst the British wealthy are more likely to stay the foreign wealthy don’t need to and those considering moving to the UK won’t come.

There is a line people have when they have a lot of money where they feel they are paying too much. It’s not right or wrong it’s just human.

These people aren’t using an excess of the national infrastructure because they are wealthier, they aren’t using more resources from the state in proportion to their tax contribution. if they used in proportion to their wealth then there is an argument to tax them more proportionately but generally they use less. Private education and healthcare being the clearest examples.

If the argument for taxing them more is that it will generate a higher long term tax rate and increase growth and new business then great. If it’s really about a gut envy, which sadly it often really is, then why cut off the country’s nose to spite its face.

So many people most exercised by the wealthy and their tax rates aren’t in any way affected by them. They aren’t being blocked from buying a “Knightsbridge Mansion” because a Swiss hedge fund manager is living there and if we tax him out then it becomes in their price range. People aren’t finding they can’t get served quickly enough because there are a load of super rich wives hogging the deli counter at Harrods. They aren’t pissed off because the waiting list for their new Ferrari is long so if we can tax the fuckers out we will get our new car quicker. I could understand it if there was a battle for resources but there isn’t that.