Tax Jumps on Wine and Spirits but Falls on Fizz

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BBC: A major shake-up of the way alcohol is taxed could leave many drinks costing more from Tuesday.

Under what the Treasury says are new "common-sense" principles, tax is being levied according to a drink's strength.

Duty will increase overall, with most wines and spirits seeing rises, but will fall on lower-alcohol drinks and most sparkling wine.

Taxes on draught pints will not change, an additional measure designed to support pubs.

Alcohol duties have been frozen since 2020. These changes were originally scheduled for February this year but were postponed by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as the cost-of-living crisis continued.

Now with prices still rising, though at a slower rate, the government is going ahead with a 10.1% rise in alcohol duties, and is also overhauling the system. » | Lucy Hooker, Business reporter, BBC News | Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Oh the joyless Tories! Heap more misery on the less well-off, why don’t you? Price fags and booze out of the budgets of all but the superrich. Workers and the middle class be damned!

Thank goodness I gave up smoking over one and a quarter years ago; and, as it happens, at least for the moment, I am not drinking alcohol either: I haven’t had an alcoholic drink for over five weeks. My wallet is thanking me for this as are my lungs and liver! – Mark

Trouble brewing: Rishi Sunak heckled on pint-pulling photo op: Prime minister challenged by pub landlord as he promotes changes to alcohol duty at London beer festival »

Millionaires at Davos Say 'Tax Us More'

Millionaires Marlene Engelhorn and Phil White joined a Davos protest calling for higher taxes on the wealthy | PHIL WHITE
BBC: A handful of wealthy attendees gathered in Davos are calling on world leaders to tackle the cost of living crisis by pushing up taxes for people like them.

They took to the streets on Sunday alongside left-wing activists to call for fairer tax systems worldwide.

Political and business leaders are at the first in-person World Economic Forum (WEF) since the pandemic began.

But criticisms are mounting over the way the wealthy have profited in the last two years.

UK millionaire Phil White said: "While the rest of the world is collapsing under the weight of an economic crisis, billionaires and world leaders meet in this private compound to discuss turning points in history.

"It's outrageous that our political leaders listen to those who have the most, know the least about the economic impact of this crisis, and many of whom pay infamously little in taxes. The only credible outcome from this conference is to tax the richest and tax us now."

Mr White, who represents a group called Patriotic Millionaires, made his money as a business consultant. He said he was joining left-wing and anti-poverty campaigners calling for change at the annual meeting of influential business people and political leaders because the current economic system was failing.

Over the past decade, a growing number of millionaires and billionaires in the US and Europe have spoken out, calling for governments to impose higher taxes, including wealth levies on the richest.

While only a small number of millionaires were in Davos to attend the protest, the campaigners have sent an open letter to all Davos delegates, signed by millionaire supporters in several countries. » | BBC | Monday, May 23, 2022

Millionaires ask to pay more tax »

Coronavirus: Disney heir and Ben & Jerry’s call for higher taxes »

Millionaires Call On Governments Worldwide to ‘Tax Us Now’

THE GUARDIAN: Group of 102 wealthy people say tax would help tackle gulf between rich and poor

Gemma McGough, a British entrepreneur and founding member of Patriotic Millionaires UK.Photograph: PA
More than 100 members of the global super-rich called on Wednesday for governments around the world to “tax us now” to help pay for the pandemic response and tackle the gulf between rich and poor.

The group of 102 millionaires and billionaires, including Disney heiress Abigail Disney, said the current tax system is rigged in their favour and needs to be rewritten to make taxation fairer for hard-working people and restore trust in politics.

“As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair,” they said in an open letter published on Wednesday. “Most of us can say that, while the world has gone through an immense amount of suffering in the last two years, we have actually seen our wealth rise during the pandemic – yet few if any of us can honestly say that we pay our fair share in taxes.”

The super-rich signatories, who brand themselves as “patriotic millionaires”, called for the introduction of “permanent wealth taxes on the richest to help reduce extreme inequality and raise revenue for sustained, long-term increases in public services like healthcare”. » | Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent | Wednesday, January 19, 2022

‘Raise My Taxes – Now!’: The Millionaires Who Want to Give It All Away

THE GUARDIAN: Abigail Disney has parted with $72m – and thinks the rich need to pay far more tax. As Covid widens the inequality gap, she and an international league of the super-rich are urging governments to take their money

Abigail Disney has always been very, very rich, or, as she describes it, “too rich”. The money came with her name: she is the granddaughter of Roy Disney who, with his brother Walt, founded the Walt Disney Company in 1923. Disney, 61, refuses to say how much she has, but acknowledges she would have been a billionaire in her own right had she not realised in her 20s that it was her fortune that was making her miserable, and decided to start giving it away.

She has been donating to good causes ever since – $72m (£52m) and counting, mostly to groups helping women in prison, women living with HIV, and victims of domestic violence. But giving it away is no longer enough. She wants the tax collector to take more money, not only from her, but from “all of the absurdly rich people across the world”.

“We’ve long known that the world is hugely unequal,” says Disney. “But now the pandemic has really shown it to all of us, and no one in all conscience can continue to ignore it.” Disney is speaking over Zoom from a pristine white sofa in her San Francisco home. Today, she looks more hippy chic than heiress: her light-brown hair falls in long, gentle curls, and there is a discreet peace dove tattooed on the inside of her wrist.

“It is like when your kids have a bath, and you pull the plug out and slowly all the little toys at the bottom are revealed,” says Disney. “That is what has happened here: now we all know what is going on under the surface.” As well as killing more than 2.5 million people, the pandemic and global lockdown response has plunged some 150 million more into “extreme poverty”, according to the World Bank. The Washington-based institution described Covid-19 as “a heat-seeking missile speeding toward the most vulnerable in society”. » | Rupert Neate | Saturday, April 3, 2021

The Patriotic Millionaires »

Christine Lagarde, Scourge of Tax Evaders, Pays No Tax

THE GUARDIAN: IMF boss who caused international outrage when she suggested that Greeks should pay their taxes earns a tax-free salary

Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged.

As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes.

The former French finance minister took over as managing director of the IMF last year when she succeeded her disgraced compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign after he faced charges – later dropped – of sexually attacking a New York hotel maid.

Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States government, and he pays taxes on it.

The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees – article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961, which has been signed by 187 states, declares: "A diplomatic agent shall be exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real, national, regional or municipal." » | Kim Willsher in Paris | Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Don’t Expect Sympathy, Lagarde Tells Greeks – It’s Payback Time »

Fleeing the Wealth Tax: Wealthy French Take Their Assets to London

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: During the election campaign, French President François Hollande threatened to slap an income tax rate of 75 percent on high earners. Since then, wealthy French have been looking for ways to get themselves and their money out of the country. And nowhere looks more attractive than millionaire-friendly London.

It began in 2010, when wealthy Greeks started coming to London and buying up expensive townhouses in upmarket neighborhoods. Amid fears that Greece might leave the euro zone, they believed their money would be safe in Britain in its splendid isolation from the euro and the Continent's sovereign debt crisis.

Then rich Spaniards started arriving. They were following by well off Italians, who at the start of the year overtook Russians as the biggest group of foreign buyers snapping up property in London, according to a survey.

Whenever the euro crisis heats up somewhere in Europe, the demand for expensive homes increases in Western Europe's largest city particularly among well-heeled foreigners beset by asset angst.

London real estate agents are like the canary in the coalmine for the debt crisis. They can sense early on the next country to get sucked into the vortex. So who's up next? Apparently it's the French.

Wave of Interest

Real estate agents have been aware of a new wave of interest for months, but it's been especially noticeable since Feb. 28. The night before, the then Socialist candidate for French president, François Hollande, who famously said "I don't like the rich," announced that, if elected, he would raise the top rate of tax on incomes over €1 million to 75 percent. At home, he got much applause for the announcement. But in London, the news produced a reaction that was noticeable on the computers of the London-based property company Knight Frank. » | Marco Evers in London | Friday, May 18, 2012

Cardinal O’Brien Accuses David Cameron of ‘Immoral’ Tax Stance

BBC: The UK's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, has said he believes the prime minister is acting immorally by putting the needs of the rich ahead of those of ordinary citizens affected by the recession.

Cardinal O'Brien, who is the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has also branded David Cameron's opposition to a "Robin Hood tax" on financial institutions as "shameful".

In a BBC Scotland interview, the Cardinal said: "My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.

"The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.

"And I am saying to the prime minister, look, don't just protect your very rich colleagues in the financial industry, consider the moral obligation to help the poor of our country."

The UK government has opposed the unilateral introduction of a tax on financial transactions, arguing jobs and investment would be lost overseas. But the Cardinal said he believes that position is immoral because, he maintains it overlooks the needs of the poorest in society and those of the less well-off.

He said: "When I say poor, I don't (only) mean the abject poverty we see sometimes in our streets.

"I mean people who would have considered themselves reasonably well-off.

"People who have saved for their pensions and now realise their pension funds are no more.

"People who are considering giving up their retirement homes that they have been saving for, poverty affecting young couples and so on and so on.

"It is these people who have had to suffer because of the financial disasters of recent years and it is immoral. It is not moral, just to ignore them and to say 'struggle along', while the rich can go sailing along in their own sweet way." » | David Miller | BBC Scotland | Sunday, April 29, 2012

François Hollande Vows to Tax the Rich to Pay Off French Deficit
THE GUARDIAN: Leftwing frontrunner in presidential race launches manifesto on how Socialist party would deal with financial crisis


François Hollande, the leftwing frontrunner in the French presidential race, has vowed to make the rich pay the highest price to help drag France out of its economic crisis, while promising to pump more money into schools and state-assisted jobs.

The Socialist rural MP, who recently declared "my real adversary in this campaign is the world of finance", launched his manifesto on Thursday, a road map of how the left would deal with the financial crisis. Hollande said he would raise taxes for banks and big companies as well as France's richest people, and use the money to help wipe out the nation's crippling public deficit.

By scrapping some €29bn (£24bn) worth of tax breaks for wealthier people introduced under Nicolas Sarkozy, he said he could find €20bn to deal with the corrosion of French society: record unemployment, soaring youth jobless figures and an education system that has been shamed as one of the most unequal in Europe, where one in six children leave with no qualifications. » | Angelique Chrisafis | Thursday, January 26, 2012

EU Plans for Direct Tax Would Lead to British Referendum
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The European Union's plans to levy direct taxes on Britons and those in other member countries would amount to a "transfer of sovereignty" that would force the Coalition Government to hold a Europe referendum.

Janusz Lewandowski, the European budget commissioner, has told The Daily Telegraph that his recent proposals to finance the EU through VAT, carbon, aviation or financial transaction taxes would touch on "holy" elements of national sovereignty.

So sensitive is the plan, tabled last week, to move from payments made by national treasuries to giving the EU "own resources" through direct European taxation, that it would have to be "ratified" in every country, the commissioner admitted.

"It needs ratification because it is prerogative of a national state to set its own taxes. No taxation without representation – it must be ratified," said the commissioner. "This is a sacred prerogative of national parliaments."

Under the Coalition Government's promised "referendum lock" any transfer of powers, such as tax raising powers, from Westminster to Brussels would be subject to a popular vote by Britons at a time when public hostility to the EU is growing. >>> Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Monday, October 25, 2010

US Crackdown Could Tighten Tax Noose on Multinationals
THE TELEGRAPH: American companies may soon have to adapt to a fiscal regime without frontiers.

President Barack Obama has revealed a protectionist streak. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
THE world is becoming a chillier place for multinationals, and for the owners of capital.

While President Barack Obama's plan to clamp down on the overseas earnings of US corporations has been billed as an attack on offshore havens, it heralds a deeper change in the way the US companies are taxed worldwide.

American citizens must pay US income tax on every dollar, peso, or yuan they earn, whether or not they set foot on US soil that year. Mr Obama is making the first efforts to extend this principle to companies as well.

At the moment, US multinationals can take tax deductions on overseas earnings, but delay tax on profits forever by reinvesting abroad. They can shuffle money from one subsidiary to another through the "check box" loophole. This is why US companies pay just $16bn (£11bn) a year on $700bn of foreign earnings, a tax rate of 2.3pc.

Mr Obama has a fight on his hands trying to stop it. >>> By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Many UK Bosses Pay Less Tax than Their Cleaners!
THE TELEGRAPH: Only a small proportion of Britain’s highest-earners pay any income tax, it has been revealed.

Of the hundreds of people thought to be paid more than £10 million a year, only 65 face income tax bills, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The disclosure came amid heightened concerns about the gulf between rich and poor as one of the UK’s wealthiest men warned it could lead to rioting in the streets.

Sir Ronald Cohen, founder of private equity firm Apax, said that if people are “left behind” in the race to accumulate riches, there could be a repeat of the Paris 2005 riots. Highest-earners pay no income tax (more)

THE TELEGRAPH:
Private equity bosses defend low tax rate

Mark Alexander