Wealth Tax in the UK

MikeUpNorth said:
Looks correct to me: https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/members/contribution-rates/

@esmufc07 wouldn't lie to us.
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Alpha is a defined benefit scheme, rather than defined contribution (which most are). Alpha gives you a flat 2.32% of your salary as an annual pension, per year in the scheme, unrelated to what you pay in. i.e if I’m earning 20k, Alpha will add £464 to my annual pension. There is no employer contribution because the money paid in is not going into a pot, it is simply to pay for the administration of the scheme.

That’s not to say it isn’t a good deal of course, but certainly some of the older civil service pensions (especially the final salary ones) were definitely more generous.

The link you provided I believe shows the rates associated with one of the older schemes - “Partnership”.
 
RedRover said:
Do you know many people like that? I know one person under the age of 50 who lives in a nice house and owns it, and he inherited it (and it's not worth £500k).

Its obviously sensible to pay your mortgage of earlier if you can for the money you save on interest, but I suspect the vast majority of people pay it off at whatever monthly sum they've agreed from time time with the lender, at least until they're in late middle age when they might pay a chunk off. Most people I know live to their means, and as such, the more upwardly mobile they become the bigger house they buy (to a point) essentially taking on more debt to fund it. They're actually no richer in real terms, day to day, they simply have higher overheads.

Also, perhaps it's living in the north east, but I don't know many people who could borrow the money to buy a £500k plus house in terms of cash loan to value, or salary. I could buy a house of that value now, but I'd be stretched and I'm a Partner in a law firm so do ok. Different in London of course but then a £500k house in London is nothing flash and as such, I could see why someone living in one wouldn't perceive themselves as wealthy.
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No, I don't know many people like that, but they're the kind of people being used in this thread to argue why a wealth tax from 500k is unfair.

There also seems to be this conception that a wealth tax should only be for the wealthy, I don't know if it's just because of the name but I find that weird. By all means, I get that people think the really wealthy should pay more but in that case just make the tax progressive like the income tax. In Norway wealth is taxed 0.85 % for net assets above £125k. Now, to be fair, there are rebates; stocks are valued at 2/3rds of market value and your primary residence as low as 25 %, but that means that a paid off 500k home would but you exactly at the limit like we're talking about here.

If a wealth tax should only hit the real wealthy, why not apply the same logic to income taxes? In Norway income tax kicks in at £4k, in UK a quick google shows £12.5k. Why nok £100k? After all, people with low income might struggle to pay.

And I think you'd also find that a lot of people with £500k in the bank would probably own a home. It's be an odd thing to do (in my opinion) to save that much money and not have a house - unless of course you had reason, such as working abroad.
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This wasn't aimed at me, but I'll share my thoughts anyway. Buying a home is an investment like any other: you forego capital, and if you borrow you pay interest on the loan, vs the advantage of not paying rent and the potential for rising house prices. Your alternative is to invest that capital elsewhere. You'd probably not keep your money in the bank in that case, but maybe rather stocks and bonds. This is a perfectly valid strategy. Another perhaps more common strategy is to buy a home but not paying down the mortgage, rather choosing to invest that capital elsewhere. In the context of a home worth £500k you'd invest at least the down payment. Again, I'm not too familiar with the UK market but another quick google shows that you typically need 5-15 %, so £25k to £75k. Lets say that to keep the bank happy you stabilize at 25 %, so you got £125k capital in your home. Instead of a mortgage free home you then have £375k costing you interest but gaining you whatever profit you earn elsewhere. The calculation becomes profit minus interest and whatever risk premium you're comfortable with. Again, a perfectly valid strategy. Personally I'm doing a weak form of this. I didn't pay down my loan the first five years, I only paid the interest. Right now I'm paying each month, but in a while I'll probably stop.
 
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NotThatSoph said:
If a wealth tax should only hit the real wealthy, why not apply the same logic to income taxes? In Norway income tax kicks in at £4k, in UK a quick google shows £12.5k. Why nok £100k? After all, people with low income might struggle to pay.
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Do you not know how daft that reads? The clue is in the name...income tax is a tax on income so anybody who has any will get taxed according to which band they fall in. A wealth tax is a targeted tax like other taxes so only those considered wealthy will pay it. The argument here is about what constitutes wealthy.
 
Grinner said:
Do you not know how daft that reads? The clue is in the name...income tax is a tax on income so anybody who has any will get taxed according to which band they fall in. A wealth tax is a targeted tax like other taxes so only those considered wealthy will pay it. The argument here is about what constitutes wealthy.
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his point does make sense.

if you called it at asset tax - you get taxed a % of the worth of your assets, and there’s no reason that doesn’t start at a low value.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
his point does make sense.

if you called it at asset tax - you get taxed a % of the worth of your assets, and there’s no reason that doesn’t start at a low value.
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But it isn't called that!

Anyway, isn't this whole discussion pointless as Sunak has made it clear that he doesn't support the idea? He's more inclined towards raising CGT from what I've been reading.
 
Grinner said:
But it isn't called that!

Anyway, isn't this whole discussion pointless as Sunak has made it clear that he doesn't support the idea? He's more inclined towards raising CGT from what I've been reading.
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It doesn’t matter what it’s called. People have got caught up with wealth/ wealthy. The proposal is a tax on assets - it was just if you about it in that terminology, the post from @NotThatSoph might be clearer to some.
 
Grinner said:
Do you not know how daft that reads? The clue is in the name...income tax is a tax on income so anybody who has any will get taxed according to which band they fall in. A wealth tax is a targeted tax like other taxes so only those considered wealthy will pay it. The argument here is about what constitutes wealthy.
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No, I don't, because wealth in this context is assets - debt. If you have five pounds and no debt you've got a wealth of five. It's just an English language thing, in Norway it's called "formuesskatt" which doesn't imply anything at all about how much you've got, but on the English version of the page it's called a wealth tax.

https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/rates/wealth-tax/
 
Grinner said:
Do you not know how daft that reads? The clue is in the name...income tax is a tax on income so anybody who has any will get taxed according to which band they fall in. A wealth tax is a targeted tax like other taxes so only those considered wealthy will pay it. The argument here is about what constitutes wealthy.
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It's a tax on wealth, wealth and wealthy are 2 different things. If you have any sort of money/assets left over after all of your debts have been accounted for, you have some form of wealth.
 
Walrus said:
Alpha is a defined benefit scheme, rather than defined contribution (which most are). Alpha gives you a flat 2.32% of your salary as an annual pension, per year in the scheme, unrelated to what you pay in. i.e if I’m earning 20k, Alpha will add £464 to my annual pension. There is no employer contribution because the money paid in is not going into a pot, it is simply to pay for the administration of the scheme.

That’s not to say it isn’t a good deal of course, but certainly some of the older civil service pensions (especially the final salary ones) were definitely more generous.

The link you provided I believe shows the rates associated with one of the older schemes - “Partnership”.
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Yes, it’s defined benefit, with the employer taking the investment risk rather than the individual. The employer obviously still has to pay in a massive contribution to make the sums add up, and you can see the contribution on your payslip.

And that link is for all civil service schemes including Alpha, the first sentence of the page says so:
There is now a single set of contribution rates across Civil Service Pensions, regardless of whether members are in classic, classic plus, premium, nuvos or alpha.
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MikeUpNorth said:
Yes, it’s defined benefit, with the employer taking the investment risk rather than the individual. The employer obviously still has to pay in a massive contribution to make the sums add up, and you can see the contribution on your payslip.

And that link is for all civil service schemes including Alpha, the first sentence of the page says so:
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If I earn 20k and get £464 added to my yearly pension when I retire, then the contribution rate entirely depends on how long I manage to stay alive once I have retired. If they have to pay me £464 for 30 years, then obviously the employer is paying a lot more than if I only last for 5. I agree that for the most part, it still seems like a good deal, especially from a security standpoint of not having to worry about how long your pension pot lasts.

There is no defined contribution, hence the name. The website first says;

Civil Service Pensions employee contribution rates Scheme Year 01 April 2020 to 31 March 2021

Annualised rate of pensionable earningsEmployee contribution rate
FromTo
£0£22,6004.60%
£22,601£54,9005.45%
£54,901£150,0007.35%
£150,001-8.05%

This is accurate as this is the rate employees pay in at, rather than the employer contribution.

It then says "The defined contribution scheme, partnership, has separate employee and employer contribution rates. " and goes on to list another table, which is where the 28% figure is coming from. This does not apply to current pension schemes (i.e. alpha), as in those there is no concept of a defined employer contribution, it is a variable contribution based on life expectancy.

This has gone rather off topic so happy to discuss further by PM, ill say no more here on the subject.
 
NotThatSoph said:
No, I don't know many people like that, but they're the kind of people being used in this thread to argue why a wealth tax from 500k is unfair.

There also seems to be this conception that a wealth tax should only be for the wealthy, I don't know if it's just because of the name but I find that weird. By all means, I get that people think the really wealthy should pay more but in that case just make the tax progressive like the income tax. In Norway wealth is taxed 0.85 % for net assets above £125k. Now, to be fair, there are rebates; stocks are valued at 2/3rds of market value and your primary residence as low as 25 %, but that means that a paid off 500k home would but you exactly at the limit like we're talking about here.

If a wealth tax should only hit the real wealthy, why not apply the same logic to income taxes? In Norway income tax kicks in at £4k, in UK a quick google shows £12.5k. Why nok £100k? After all, people with low income might struggle to pay.



This wasn't aimed at me, but I'll share my thoughts anyway. Buying a home is an investment like any other: you forego capital, and if you borrow you pay interest on the loan, vs the advantage of not paying rent and the potential for rising house prices. Your alternative is to invest that capital elsewhere. You'd probably not keep your money in the bank in that case, but maybe rather stocks and bonds. This is a perfectly valid strategy. Another perhaps more common strategy is to buy a home but not paying down the mortgage, rather choosing to invest that capital elsewhere. In the context of a home worth £500k you'd invest at least the down payment. Again, I'm not too familiar with the UK market but another quick google shows that you typically need 5-15 %, so £25k to £75k. Lets say that to keep the bank happy you stabilize at 25 %, so you got £125k capital in your home. Instead of a mortgage free home you then have £375k costing you interest but gaining you whatever profit you earn elsewhere. The calculation becomes profit minus interest and whatever risk premium you're comfortable with. Again, a perfectly valid strategy. Personally I'm doing a weak form of this. I didn't pay down my loan the first five years, I only paid the interest. Right now I'm paying each month, but in a while I'll probably stop.
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Very good and informed post, this.

You might even add that you get a rebate on the interest you pay as well, making it even more lucrative to invest in property (in Norway, that is).

Me and the missus are looking to upgrade our apartment right now, and that is mainly for financial investment reasons. We've made a lot of money due to price rises since buying the apartment we live in now (like £100k in three years), which allows us to enter a different level in the market, further increasing our potential for profit (6% of £600k is more than 6% of 400k). We get a rebate on the interest as well, which makes it even more sensible in our point of view at this moment in time.
We're still far, far away from the "floor" of having to pay a wealth tax, and it's highly unlikely we'll get there in at least a couple of years, and even then I think it will be perfectly fair to tax us for the wealth we've gained.

I'm all for a progressive wealth tax (or progressive taxes in general, really), with a sensible floor (like above £125k net, for example).
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
It doesn’t matter what it’s called. People have got caught up with wealth/ wealthy. The proposal is a tax on assets - it was just if you about it in that terminology, the post from @NotThatSoph might be clearer to some.
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And as evidence by this whole thread wealth is different in different parts of the country. One figure in London might catch the whole population but not catch many at all elsewhere.

It would almost need to be based on median wealth in each area to make it fair
 
Jippy said:
Or inheriting, but yeah would be odd. I hate the argument cash left 'idle' should be taxed. God forbid anyone puts some away for emergencies.
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Absolutely. I have a problem with inheritance tax in its current format as well. You get taxed on income, taxed on savings and then taxed again when you die. It's especially problematic when families inherit a valuable property and have to sell it to pay the tax. I had a client that happened to a couple of years ago.
 
NotThatSoph said:
No, I don't know many people like that, but they're the kind of people being used in this thread to argue why a wealth tax from 500k is unfair.

There also seems to be this conception that a wealth tax should only be for the wealthy, I don't know if it's just because of the name but I find that weird. By all means, I get that people think the really wealthy should pay more but in that case just make the tax progressive like the income tax. In Norway wealth is taxed 0.85 % for net assets above £125k. Now, to be fair, there are rebates; stocks are valued at 2/3rds of market value and your primary residence as low as 25 %, but that means that a paid off 500k home would but you exactly at the limit like we're talking about here.

If a wealth tax should only hit the real wealthy, why not apply the same logic to income taxes? In Norway income tax kicks in at £4k, in UK a quick google shows £12.5k. Why nok £100k? After all, people with low income might struggle to pay.



This wasn't aimed at me, but I'll share my thoughts anyway. Buying a home is an investment like any other: you forego capital, and if you borrow you pay interest on the loan, vs the advantage of not paying rent and the potential for rising house prices. Your alternative is to invest that capital elsewhere. You'd probably not keep your money in the bank in that case, but maybe rather stocks and bonds. This is a perfectly valid strategy. Another perhaps more common strategy is to buy a home but not paying down the mortgage, rather choosing to invest that capital elsewhere. In the context of a home worth £500k you'd invest at least the down payment. Again, I'm not too familiar with the UK market but another quick google shows that you typically need 5-15 %, so £25k to £75k. Lets say that to keep the bank happy you stabilize at 25 %, so you got £125k capital in your home. Instead of a mortgage free home you then have £375k costing you interest but gaining you whatever profit you earn elsewhere. The calculation becomes profit minus interest and whatever risk premium you're comfortable with. Again, a perfectly valid strategy. Personally I'm doing a weak form of this. I didn't pay down my loan the first five years, I only paid the interest. Right now I'm paying each month, but in a while I'll probably stop.
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I broadly agree, although clearly taxation is a complex issue with a lot of moving parts and the current pandemic is an emergency which, in my view, justifies an "emergency" tax to try and dig us out of the economic hole we're in. That's to the benefit of everyone. If I have to pay additional tax, then there is very little I can do about it, and would have to accept it.

This thread proves one obvious point - everyone thinks people should be taxed, but they shouldn't be taxed more.
 
Walrus said:
If I earn 20k and get £464 added to my yearly pension when I retire, then the contribution rate entirely depends on how long I manage to stay alive once I have retired. If they have to pay me £464 for 30 years, then obviously the employer is paying a lot more than if I only last for 5. I agree that for the most part, it still seems like a good deal, especially from a security standpoint of not having to worry about how long your pension pot lasts.

There is no defined contribution, hence the name. The website first says;

Civil Service Pensions employee contribution rates Scheme Year 01 April 2020 to 31 March 2021

Annualised rate of pensionable earningsEmployee contribution rate
FromTo
£0£22,6004.60%
£22,601£54,9005.45%
£54,901£150,0007.35%
£150,001-8.05%

This is accurate as this is the rate employees pay in at, rather than the employer contribution.

It then says "The defined contribution scheme, partnership, has separate employee and employer contribution rates. " and goes on to list another table, which is where the 28% figure is coming from. This does not apply to current pension schemes (i.e. alpha), as in those there is no concept of a defined employer contribution, it is a variable contribution based on life expectancy.

This has gone rather off topic so happy to discuss further by PM, ill say no more here on the subject.
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Mate, you're just reading the page wrong.

"There is now a single set of contribution rates across Civil Service Pensions, regardless of whether members are in classic, classic plus, premium, nuvos or alpha.

The rates are set out in the tables below."

You can read full details here: https://www.civilservicepensionsche...ion-guide/civil-service-pension-arrangements/
"alpha, nuvos, premium, classic and classic plus schemes
3.5.4 The contributions you [the employer] pay for members in these schemes are collectively known as Accruing Superannuation Liability Charges (ASLC).

3.5.5 The ASLC rates and pay bands that you must use are set out on the Employer Contribution Rates page."

The employer contribution rates for Alpha are here: https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/employers/employer-contribution-rates/

My partner is a university lecturer in a similar defined benefit scheme (USS) and her payslips set out the ASLC/employer contributions (21.1% I believe). Yes, DB schemes are complicated and contributions don't go into an individual pot, but it is real money an employer is paying each month on behalf of their employees.
 
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Grinner said:
But it isn't called that!

Anyway, isn't this whole discussion pointless as Sunak has made it clear that he doesn't support the idea? He's more inclined towards raising CGT from what I've been reading.
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That's the good news I wanted to hear. But I don't trust the bugger's party, he's put wealth tax out there in the media to soften us before hitting us with it.

I'm ok with income tax and CGT going up to fill the covid 'hole'.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
Surely putting up inheritance tax would have brought in the money over the past 12 months. MYbe that ship has sailed :nono:
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Brutal but true - we should also acknowledge that one part of the ugly windfall of covid is that some of the victims were high maintenance for the health and care sector. That said, a lot of the deaths were in carehomes and amongst people receiving care at home. Given how the payment support rules work for those, some of them will have used a bunch of that potential inheritance.

Which is where we need to talk about the tax system needing to look at longterm solutions rather than a one-off Covid crisis tax. Somebody needs to fund the care sector and realistically that has to come from the (comfortably off) old. They're also more likely to see the value in a tax hike that protects them from the lottery of guessing how much professional care, they or their partner will need, and how many years of it. Which takes me back to the question of NI (even if it gets a name change) on pensions and on other income sources like rents and dividends.
 
jojojo said:
Brutal but true - we should also acknowledge that one part of the ugly windfall of covid is that some of the victims were high maintenance for the health and care sector. That said, a lot of the deaths were in carehomes and amongst people receiving care at home. Given how the payment support rules work for those, some of them will have used a bunch of that potential inheritance.

Which is where we need to talk about the tax system needing to look at longterm solutions rather than a one-off Covid crisis tax. Somebody needs to fund the care sector and realistically that has to come from the (comfortably off) old. They're also more likely to see the value in a tax hike that protects them from the lottery of guessing how much professional care, they or their partner will need, and how many years of it. Which takes me back to the question of NI (even if it gets a name change) on pensions and on other income sources like rents and dividends.
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NI is a mess. I don't get the arguments for why it is charged only on certain types of income, and at different rates between employees and self-employed. There must be reasons why merging it with income tax is a bad idea, but I can't think of them (I guess you could make the argument that people who made post-tax pension contributions will have already paid NI on it once).

More broadly, the tax system is a mess, and policy changes over the years have just worsened the situation. This is from a few years ago so the bands are slightly different now, but the marginal tax rates are still broadly correct:
1568px-Percentage_IT_and_NI_and_Marginal_Taxrate.png


How the feck does that make any sense to anyone? And that's before we even consider further nonsense like pension and child benefit tapers which confuse the marginal rates even further.
 
jojojo said:
Brutal but true - we should also acknowledge that one part of the ugly windfall of covid is that some of the victims were high maintenance for the health and care sector. That said, a lot of the deaths were in carehomes and amongst people receiving care at home. Given how the payment support rules work for those, some of them will have used a bunch of that potential inheritance.

Which is where we need to talk about the tax system needing to look at longterm solutions rather than a one-off Covid crisis tax. Somebody needs to fund the care sector and realistically that has to come from the (comfortably off) old. They're also more likely to see the value in a tax hike that protects them from the lottery of guessing how much professional care, they or their partner will need, and how many years of it. Which takes me back to the question of NI (even if it gets a name change) on pensions and on other income sources like rents and dividends.
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Social care is a time bomb.

I agree that a one off tax grab is not what we should be looking at.

one of the reasons I have invested in property, is that either the pension age will be 70-75 when I get to that age and/ or the state pension will be insufficient. As I’m self employed, there no benefit to me of a pension, as the biggest perk of that is employer contributions - rather than the actual growth of the pot.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
Social care is a time bomb.

I agree that a one off tax grab is not what we should be looking at.

one of the reasons I have invested in property, is that either the pension age will be 70-75 when I get to that age and/ or the state pension will be insufficient. As I’m self employed, there no benefit to me of a pension, as the biggest perk of that is employer contributions - rather than the actual growth of the pot.
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There's still the big benefit of tax relief on your contributions!
 
Grinner said:
But it isn't called that!

Anyway, isn't this whole discussion pointless as Sunak has made it clear that he doesn't support the idea? He's more inclined towards raising CGT from what I've been reading.
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Sunak isn’t stupid, he’ll know that increasing CGT will achieve nothing beyond a PR win.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
that’s a fair point, but still I can make the money work far better for myself.My pension pots from before self employment have remained stagnant over the past decade.
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Wow, really? What are they invested in?! The market is up nearly 200% over the last 10 years.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Wow, really? What are they invested in?! The market is up nearly 200% over the last 10 years.
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Typical standard life company pension. To be honest, I’ve not really looked too hard, the projected returns are bordering on pathetic.

im looking at a SASS, but need a lot of time bring everything together.
 
RedRover said:
Absolutely. I have a problem with inheritance tax in its current format as well. You get taxed on income, taxed on savings and then taxed again when you die. It's especially problematic when families inherit a valuable property and have to sell it to pay the tax. I had a client that happened to a couple of years ago.
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I hate inheritance tax. Don't agree with it at all but with good planning it can be mitigated
 
Are we talking about SSAS?

I thought you could hold commercial property in a SIPP, but not 100% sure.
 
arnie_ni said:
I hate inheritance tax. Don't agree with it at all but with good planning it can be mitigated
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Indeed, and it's prudent to do so. It's something a lot of people won't consider though. As a lawyer I'm constantly suggesting people take tax advice but they rarely do since they're not keen on the upfront cost - even if it saves them a lot more!
 
I think the bit that irritates the most with inheritance is the double whammy of a lifetime inheritance tax and then the death tax as well.

But yea, the lifetime tax can be mitigated with careful future planning (and so can the death tax in instances too).
 
TrustInJanuzaj said:
Whats the alternative, the rich get richer?
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You've worked and paid tax on all your income all your life, God forbid you leave some of it to your kids.

It's wrong to tax them again in my view.

Don't agree with it at all. It's a double tax
 
arnie_ni said:
You've worked and paid tax on all your income all your life, God forbid you leave some of it to your kids.

It's wrong to tax them again in my view.

Don't agree with it at all. It's a double tax
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Well that's why there is a threshold. They don't take everything. Surely you can't think creating trust fund babies who do feck all for society is a good way forward?
 
Grinner said:
Well that's why there is a threshold. They don't take everything. Surely you can't think creating trust fund babies who do feck all for society is a good way forward?
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They'll still do feck all tbh.
I just don't agree with the premise of it and It would take a real good argument to convince me otherwise.

But as I said good tax planning can avoid it.

It's a hateful calculation as an accountant as well, eugh
 
arnie_ni said:
You've worked and paid tax on all your income all your life, God forbid you leave some of it to your kids.

It's wrong to tax them again in my view.

Don't agree with it at all. It's a double tax
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Leaving behind stuff for your kids makes sense but it's not like it all gets taken away. Frankly, I don't think it's heavy enough. If it were up to me, we would have an inheritance cap rather than a tax and anything over say One or Two million just gets claimed back. Too much money is held by a small minority of people.
 
arnie_ni said:
I'm speechless at that.

Be a nice problem to have all the same
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Guessing you're a Tory? I don't believe that anyone needs or is worth over a certain amount. Its a different debate but there's no way billionaires should be a thing, absolutely ridiculous distribution of wealth.
 
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