Keir Starmer and his accomplices are about to prove yet again the immutable law of nature to which there are no known exceptions. Here it is, in capital letters:
WHEN SOCIALISM MOVES IN, PEOPLE MOVE OUT
Every leaked piece of information about the forthcoming Autumn Budget suggests that Labour will do what socialists always do: soak the rich, loosely defined. That targeted category doesn’t just include billionaires. As far as Labour are concerned, anyone with assets of a million or two is filthy rich.
Considering property prices in the UK, especially in the southeast of England, the stigma of ill-gotten gains can be attached to millions of people who have the misfortune of owning their residence. Add to that a few ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts), some shares here and there, and the pool of soakable rich grows to the size of a decent lake.
Socialist dogma preaches the zero-sum falsehood, meaning that it’s only possible for some to become rich by making others poor. An economy to that lot is a pie whose size stays constant. Hence if some greedy reprobate helps himself to a large slice, someone else, a member of the downtrodden masses, will only get a small piece – if not just crumbs off the fat cat’s table.
Imposing confiscatory taxes on such plutocrats seems fair, in the professed false hope that the poor will become wealthier as a result. “Those with the widest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden,” is how our socialist PM expressed his take on economics.
This is a lie on many different levels. First, “those with the widest shoulders” are already bearing the heaviest burden: the top one per cent of taxpayers, that is about 300,000 individuals, already contribute 30 per cent of all income tax revenues.
At least 10,000 of them are prepared to prove that their wide shoulders come with quick feet by fleeing Britain this year. How many will run away next year and in all the subsequent years of Labour government is anyone’s guess.
What is absolutely certain is that the proposed tax hikes won’t produce any more tax income, quite the opposite. For example, wealthy Britons and foreigners aren’t going to invest in Britain if capital gains tax is, as planned, brought in line with income tax brackets of up to 45 per cent. No matter how patriotic those Britons are, or how Anglophile foreign investors feel, they’ll take their money elsewhere.
Our globalised economy offers plenty of destinations for those running away from tax raids, with Dubai, Ireland and Italy currently occupying the top of the list. All over Britain, families with sizeable assets are packing their bags, filling them with thousands of jobs they’ll take elsewhere.
Ever since Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a restaurant napkin at the lunch he was sharing with Reagan’s advisers, everyone has known that higher tax rates don’t automatically produce higher tax revenues. This stands to psychological reason: people aren’t going to generate taxable income if they know most of what they earn will be taken away.
You know it, I know it – and Labour politicians certainly know it. But unlike you and me, they don’t care.
It’s not for economic reasons that they are planning a massive tax raid on pensions, property, investments, energy production and consumption, and everything else they can get their grubby fingers on. Whatever socialists may claim, they are driven by the Marxist ideology of class struggle, and what animates it isn’t love of the poor but hatred of the rich.
Another powerful craving residing in every socialist breast is to grow the power of the state over individuals. That includes economic power, and every person independent of the state is an affront to socialist urges.
Common sense casts the pearl of economic independence before the multitudes, saying that diminishing investment into the economy is bound to increase the size of the dependent class. The socialist swine oink their instant response: so much the better.
For decades, Britain has had one of the world’s best tax-allowance systems for private pensions. This is about to end: people who use tax-free cash to become independent of the state in their old age offend every fibre of the socialist soul.
Not only do those nasties slip out of state control, but they have the gall to reject Labour – 60+ was the only demographic group voting Tory two months ago. They need to be punished, and their numbers must come down – hence tax relief on pension contributions will be reduced, if not yet abolished.
Getting income from investments is just as offensive to socialists. Only labour, ideally physical, is countenanced as a way of making money.
The only other income welcomed by Labour is that made in the public sector or various government-run quangos. Investments, however, are the work of the devil: people who use their money to make money are the bogeymen of every socialist.
In that spirit, the Labour government is planning to raise levies on all ‘chargeable assets’. These are defined as personal possessions worth £6,000 or more, apart from a car, property other than the main residence (provided it’s not let out), and any shares that aren’t kept in an ISA or PEP.
Another bogeyman is inherited wealth – as far as socialists are concerned, the economic dial must be reset in each generation. Inheritance tax, that is tax on assets left over after the taxes the deceased has been paying his whole life, is Labour’s idea of fairness. And the closer inheritance tax comes to inheritance confiscation, the fairer it is.
At present, the state imposes a 40 per cent tax on estates worth over £325,000. Again, since most middleclass people own their residences in Britain, and since most houses cost more than that threshold, effectively bereaved families shell out 40 per cent of their whole bequeathed pot.
Yet even that highway robbery doesn’t seem to be extortionate enough. Every indication is that the Chancellor will raise the inheritance tax rate, and the only unclear thing is by how much.
The flight of capital has already started. People aren’t prepared to wait for the Autumn Budget to get going – by then it may be too late, especially for those whose assets aren’t easily movable. Good riddance, as far as Labour are concerned – socialists have no need for capital.
Capital produces jobs, and jobs produce a measure of independence. Publicly, socialists may complain about the number of people on benefits. But deep down they feel it’s the more, the merrier. The more people depend on the state for their livelihood, the more powerful the state. QED.
P.S. The sight of the abortion bus parked outside the Democratic National Convention got my creative juices pumping at a high rate. The idea is so brilliant it begs to be expanded into other areas.
How about a euthanasia bus, or rather a refrigerator lorry? Just think of the potential: drive that vehicle from one neighbourhood to the next, off the wrinklies, stack up the corpses in the refrigerator compartment, unload at the morgue after dark, go home with the pride of a day well spent and a job well done.
The socialists don’t care. As long as there is one man left in the country, they will take pleasure in beggaring him.
As for the abortion bus: I can only guess that the plan is to reduce their party affiliation to zero through contraception and abortion. When unloading the wrinklies, do not forget to grab their ballots.
“As far as Labour are concerned, anyone with assets of a million or two is filthy rich.”
No. As far as Labour are concerned, anyone who has assets of £10,000 is filthy rich. £10,000 is the amount of savings that disqualifies an Old Age Pensioner from claiming Pension Credit, and an Old Age Pensioner who isn’t entitled to Pension Credit is, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, no longer entitled to the Winter Fuel Allowance, and is thus very much entitled to freeze to death.
Quite a few middle-class Brits have moved to Moscow and other places in Russia of late. There they’ll enjoy a flat income tax rate of 13% or the maximum of 15% for high net worth individuals. Some have opened their businesses in Russia.