REACTION: Wealth Tax Commission report

- Published:
- Short URL: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/mc/ipyo82/

Reacting to the Wealth Tax Commission report, which has found that applying a one percent, one-off wealth tax in the UK on households with a threshold of £1 million per household would raise £260 billion over five years, Rebecca Gowland, Oxfam Head of Inequality Campaign said:

“At a time when so many people are facing hardship as a result of the pandemic, this feasible and deliverable one-off wealth tax could transform lives – an uncomfortable truth for vested interests that are likely to resist it.

“The difference this revenue could make for the most vulnerable in society is staggering. Just a quarter of the extra money raised would be enough to keep and extend the social security weekly uplift and allow us to meet our lifesaving aid promise to the world’s poorest people.

“This money is needed now more than ever, the pandemic has pushed the number of people living in poverty in the UK to over 15 million, with 115 million more at risk of extreme poverty worldwide. It is morally repugnant to allow the poorest people to continue to pay the price for the crisis, when it is clear that a fair tax on the richest could make such a difference.”

/Ends

Notes to Editors

The proposed tax would raise an average of £52 billion a year. Extending and keeping the Universal Credit, Working Tax Credit and extending it to other legacy benefits would cost £9 billion a year, as calculated by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Reversing the proposed cut in the aid budget would cost £4 billion a year.

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