An important contribution by John Bunzl of Simpol:
Patriotic Millionaires UK calls for the rich to pay more tax: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgjp79m42go
Here’s my email to them:
Dear Rebecca Gowland,
I’m writing in response to your call for millionaires to pay more tax, which I understand and strongly support in principle. But there is a deeper structural point here: the problem is not simply whether wealthy individuals are willing to pay more, but whether any one government can raise taxes without fearing it will lose capital, investment, and mobile wealth to more competitive jurisdictions.
That is why voluntary generosity is not enough. A millionaire can always choose to donate extra money if they wish, but that does not solve the collective action problem that constrains governments themselves. Governments, including the UK government, are trapped in a global competition to remain attractive to wealth holders, and that is precisely why meaningful reform needs to be coordinated internationally rather than left to the discretion of individual taxpayers or single states.
Even if it is true that relatively few wealthy people would actually leave a country purely because taxes rose, that misses a broader political reality: no government wants to acquire a reputation as openly anti-wealth or hostile to business, because that can deter inward investment, encourage avoidance, and weaken confidence among the mobile capital on which modern economies depend. In practice, governments compete not only on tax rates themselves but on the signal they send to investors and high-net-worth individuals, which is precisely why fairer taxation cannot be achieved country by country in isolation.
This is where the Simultaneous Policy (Simpol) campaign becomes relevant. Simpol’s core insight is that the best way to deliver fairer taxation is to remove the fear that one country will be disadvantaged for acting alone; in other words, only simultaneous policy action across countries can break the race to the bottom. If Patriotic Millionaires want their campaign to have lasting impact, supporting a framework like Simpol would strengthen the case that all millionaires globally should contribute more, under rules that apply fairly across borders.
The issue, then, is not whether millionaires should be taxed more. It is how to make that politically and economically possible in a world where governments compete for mobile wealth. On that basis, your campaign and Simpol are natural allies: one raises the moral demand, the other offers the institutional solution. I very much hope we can cooperate and look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
John Bunzl – Trustee
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation
www.simpol.org