A group of twenty economists earning, I suspect, a rate significantly higher than the minimum wage have clubbed together to write a letter, no doubt claiming the cost of the stamp as expenses when they fill out their tax returns, to suggest ending the 50p rate of tax paid by the 300,000 wealthiest individuals on their earnings over £150,000.
Economists are the ones who didn't see the economic crash coming (or if they did kept it quiet) and work in the same world as private equity, hedge funds and credit default swaps that they created and understood (well it turned out they didn't really understand the latter) which is largely responsible for the economic crash. They were also the ones who advised the Government to remove the few remaining regulations they were subject to assuring us that left alone they would make us all rich and create an ever growing economy, that went well didn't it!
So firstly I don't get why we give these people news space. Their advice in recent years has generally turned out to very bad with disastrous consequences felt by lots of people who kindly bailed them out. Their letter could have started "Dear Chancellor, having successfully ballsed up the countries financial industry and damaged the British Economy for a generation we are now diversifying into tax advice". Personally I was hoping for an apology from the financial sector and offer to pay more tax to show how sorry they are.
Secondly they think they and their wealthy friends pay too much tax. Well there's a shock. Someone thinks they pay too much tax....Hold the front page! We could all walk round our places of work and find colleagues happy to sign a letter saying they want to pay less tax. We don't because we are too busy and feel unlikely to influence a Government with books to balance. So why do the economists think they are different, more influential, better? and clearly they have more time.
The final thing that annoys me is the lack of alternative proposed. If the richest 300,000 people in the country want to pay less on their earnings over £150k (about 6 times the average wage) someone else will have to pay more. These are economists, they know how it works. The reason they don't offer an alternative is because we're it! So the letter should really start
"Dear hardworking tax payer, I know we messed up your pensions, missed the economic crash, forced the government to use money it doesn't have to rescue the banks we've been advising, caused the collapse of several businesses and left lots of you redundant and repossessed, we want more from you. Could you pay more tax as well so we can erm....err... get even richer"
The 50p rate should stay or maybe not.................it's 52p in the Netherlands........... there's a thought
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