Act Now: A Vision for a Better Future and a New Social Contract

"We think we can pay for a modest basic income straight away. In Act Now: A Vision for a New Social Contract and a Better Futur e , we show that it’s possible to raise well over £150 billion quickly by relatively modest progressive changes to income tax, including equalizing rates for dividends and other forms of income and bundling regressive national insurance into marginal rates, increasing corporation tax to German levels at 30%, introducing a proportional and progressive wealth tax on wealth over £2m and frequent flyer charges, reversing fuel duty freezes and eliminating the most morally and economically indefensible reliefs. Even accounting for avoidance, that is an enormous sum of money. The argument that the wealthy will leave is predicated on the notion that Britain is not a place worth living in, which only becomes more true the more government fails to invest. Britain is still somewhere that people want to live in, and we need to stop suggesting that there’ll be the same response to wealth taxes here as there would be in a low- to middle-income country. We’re patriotic – we want Britain to be the best place in the world to live in. Decades of economic reform to bribe the wealthy into staying here have only made it much, much worse without any sign of loyalty from the people we’ve bribed."