Archbishop: Rich should pay more tax to help poor
Cash would fund a ‘citizen’s income’
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has called for the rich to pay more tax to help the poor.
The Most Rev Justin Welby wants to levy billions extra in taxes – targeted at the wealthy and business – to finance £10,000 hand outs to help young people to buy homes and a £30 a week minimum wage rise.
He also suggests giving Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the power to set their own immigration levels.
Plans set out in a report coauthored by Archbishop Welby include scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a £9billion-ayear ‘lifetime gifts tax’.
Aimed at stopping the rich handing over large sums to their children tax free, individuals would be able to receive £125,000 over their lifetime while any subsequent gifts will be charged like income tax.
The Archbishop is also demanding a ‘backstop tax’ to prevent multinationals such as Starbucks and Amazon dodging hundreds of millions of pounds in tax – and an internet watchdog to subject giants such as Google and Facebook to the same strict regulations faced by public utilities.
The Most Rev Welby is one of the authors of a Commission on Economic Justice report, which compares the state of Britain’s ‘broken’ economy to the aftermath of the 1930s crash.
It forecasts a ‘decade of disruption’ because of ‘Brexit, globalisation and other changes’ and says, unless radical steps are taken, economic problems will worsen.
The report was drawn up by the Left of centre think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
It says it is aimed at addressing the ‘economic failings of all governments in the last 30 years’.
The Archbishop calls for English regions as well as devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be given the power to control their immigration levels.
Last month, the SNP demanded devolved migration powers for Scotland, accusing the Home Office of ‘failing’ the country.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was ‘necessary and possible’ for the country to be given the power to set its own immigration policy post-Brexit.
The Archbishop also calls for tax cuts for ‘those on lower and middle incomes’ – with more paid by the wealthy, adding: ‘The wealthiest 10 per cent of households own more than 900 times the wealth of the poorest 10 per cent, and five times more than the bottom half of all households combined.’
The report also calls for a £186billion Citizens Wealth Fund to be created by 2030.
This would be funded with £90billion income from the new ‘lifetime gifts tax’ over ten years, £57billion proceeds of planned state asset sales such as RBS, £11billion Crown Estate income and other sources.
The Citizens Wealth Fund would give 25-year-olds a £10,000 ‘Universal Minimum Inheritance’ to get on the home-owning ladder or start a business.
The report also calls for a Global Talent Visa to give bright immigrants a fast track to a British passport; more ‘bargaining power for unions’; all firms with 250 employees forced to reveal pay scales; and bosses who use zero hours contracts punished by forcing them to pay £2 an hour more than the minimum wage.
The IPPR denies the proposals would make Britain less competitive. ‘All the evidence is that a
‘Split along old dividing lines’
fairer economy is a more productive and happier one,’ says the report.
It concludes: ‘Britain feels split along old dividing lines – gender, class, income, geography or ethnicity – and new ones: the generational divide, attitudes to immigration and whether we voted to leave or remain in the EU. The UK economy needs fundamental reform. We cannot “muddle through”.
‘Fundamental reform has happened twice before in the last century following crises: the Attlee Government’s reforms in the 1940s and the Thatcher free market reforms in the 1980s. Change of this magnitude is needed again.’