Tag: Tax Justice UK

The press release issued by Tax Justice UK on 9 January 2026.

Happy New Year! And what a start to the year. On day one, we saw crowds taking to the streets of New York City for new mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration chanting “Tax the rich”. That’s the energy we need to bring to the UK as we head into a year full of opportunities to make the super-rich and mega-corporations pay their fair share, and for that money to be put to good use in our public services.

In early May 2026 Wales and Scotland elect new parliaments, and councils across the UK go to the polls. These elections matter. They give us the chance to win material reforms to our tax system that could change lives in the devolved nations, turn up pressure on the national government, and build the nationwide movement we need to win transformative change. And thanks to your generous support at our last fundraiser, we’re in a strong position to seize these opportunities.

We need to keep making it clear to everyone in Westminster that no party will win the next general election without offering a credible plan to improve people’s lives. This means the government standing up and tackling inequality, and showing they’re willing to face off the vested interests of the super-rich and corporations that are hollowing out our economy.

Mamdani’s victory in New York City showed how regional elections can spark hope far beyond their borders when they centre ordinary people make bold demands, and explicitly address inequality through tax reform.

But in just this first week of the year, we’ve also had stark reminders of the world as it is right now. A world where the rich and powerful rip up, rewrite or ignore any rules that don’t serve them, and where governments serve the interests of billionaires, by any means necessary.

Earlier this week, the OECD (an opaque club of rich countries that set a number of international tax regulations) announced that the 15% Global Minimum Corporation Tax (GMCT) will no longer apply to U.S. multinationals — effectively giving the green light to some of the world’s biggest corporations to continue dodging their taxes.

Even with the global minimum corporation tax agreed, the UK was already losing an estimated $9 billion a year to tax‑dodging by U.S. companies. Under the new “side‑by‑side system,” there’s no limits on the tax that U.S. giants’ can dodge by profit-shifting. This is an accounting trick used by multinationals to pretend they made £0 in profit on their massive sales & operations in countries like the UK, by recording £billions in profits from a tiny office somewhere in a tax haven like Luxembourg or the British Virgin Islands.

This change is technical, and with so much else going on it hasn’t got the headlines it deserves. But it’s incredibly important. It will mean yet another massive transfer of wealth into the bulging bank accounts of massive mega-corporations and their billionaire shareholders and CEOs, instead of being invested into services for our communities.

In June the UK is hosting a major summit on illicit finance and dirty money. With enough public pressure, this should be a turning point in the fight against profit shifting and tax evasion. We mustn’t let up on our demand to end UK tax havens that allow monumental amounts of tax dodging. The UK government must know the public is watching — and expects them to defend fairness, not fold to corporate pressure.

So we have a massive fight on our hands in 2026. We’ll be using every election, every platform, and every moment to push for a tax system that works for people, not just the powerful.

The press release issued by Tax Justice UK on 25 October 2022.

The government could raise up to £37 billion in taxes on wealth, analysis by Tax Justice UK has found.

It comes as the new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, looks to find ways to raise taxes ahead of next week’s Halloween Budget.

Tax Justice UK Head of Advocacy, Tom Peters, said: “Tax is about political choices. At a time when most people are being hit hard by the cost of living crisis it would be wrong to cut public services further.”

“The wealthy have done really well financially in the last few years. The Chancellor should protect public spending by taxing  wealth properly.”

If he chose to, the Chancellor could:

1. Equalize capital gains with income tax rates, raising up to £14 billion a year
2. ​Apply national insurance to investment income, raising up to £8.6 billion a year
3. Apply a 1% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, raising up to £10 billion a year
4. End the inheritance tax loopholes that benefit the already wealthy, raising up to £1.4 billion a year.
5. Reform the rules on non-dom status, raising up to £3.2 billion a year

The revenue figures are estimates based on research from the government, academics and think tanks. The total figure might change depending on exact behavioural responses.​

Tax Justice UK policy recommendations:
​
Increase Capital Gains Tax to align rates with Income Tax. This would have the positive effect of simplifying the tax system, to treat all forms of income in the same way. There is no obvious reason why someone going to work should pay more tax on their wages than someone living from their investments, for example. According to the Office of Tax Simplification, who advocated for this policy change in 2020, it could also raise up to £14bn a year.

Extend National Insurance to investment income. Instead of focusing on the rates of National Insurance, the government should expand the tax base, by applying National Insurance to income from investments, such as dividends from shares, rent from property, and interest on savings . This would equalise and simplify the treatment of different types of income under the taxation system, and ensure that income from wealth is taxed at the same rate as earnings from work. It would raise around £8.6bn.

Introduce a 1% annual wealth tax on net assets over £10m. A small wealth tax applied to those at the very top of the distribution could raise nearly £10bn from 0.04% of the population – those who have benefited enormously from structural economic changes over the last decade. This tax would help to rectify some of the issues with our existing wealth taxes, which are often avoided by the very richest.

Scrap or reform Business Relief and Agricultural Property Relief on Inheritance Tax. There is evidence that these inheritance tax reliefs are being used as loopholes by a small minority of the very wealthy to avoid paying the appropriate inheritance tax on their assets. Abuse of Agricultural Property Relief is likely pushing up the price of agricultural land for genuine commercial food production. Scrapping these could raise over £1.4bn a year, or the Resolution Foundation has proposed reforms to prevent them being exploited, generating a smaller saving.

Abolishing the non-dom regime. Non-domiciled residents in the UK (‘non-doms’) receive at least £10.9 billion in offshore income and capital gains each year, which they are not required to report to HMRC or pay tax on in the UK. Taxing this income would raise more than £3.2 billion in additional tax revenue each year and also remove the current disincentive to invest in the UK, according to research by academics Dr Andy Summers and Dr Arun Advani.