Wealthy non-doms and big business should be paying to plug Britain’s £60bn black hole rather than ordinary taxpayers, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said.
In an exclusive interview with i, Sir Keir and the shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said ordinary working people should not have to pay higher taxes to “mop up the mess” of the Conservative Government.
On Sunday, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said everybody would be paying more tax following his Autumn Statement this Thursday.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves also said that Labour would prioritise energy efficiency – such as a programme to insulate 19 million homes – over increasing support for household energy bills in April. The Chancellor – as i reported on Sunday- is expected to bring universal energy support to an end in April with only the most vulnerable likely to receive help.
There is also potentially £50bn “on the table” in the form of windfall taxes, the Labour leader said.
Ms Reeves has said in the past that the £50bn figure could be raised by extending the existing windfall tax by two years, and backdating it to the beginning of January.
Critics of windfall taxes argue that they deter investment. When he was chancellor, Rishi Sunak did impose a windfall tax – or Energy Profits Levy – on energy companies which is expected to raise £5bn. But companies can claim a 91p rebate on every pound they invest.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves said the tax burden should fall on large multi-nationals – companies such as Amazon and Google have long been locked in rows over how little tax they pay in Britain – and those with non-domiciliary tax status, or so-called non-doms.
Non-doms, who until recently included the Prime Minister’s wife, Akshata Murty, are people who live in the UK but claim for tax purposes that their permanent home is abroad so they don’t have to pay tax on foreign earnings.
Sir Keir said voters were increasingly “angry” about having to pay higher taxes when they are already financially constrained. He said he wanted to keep personal taxation as low as possible for working people.
On personal taxes, the party is in favour of cutting the basic rate of income tax to 19p but supports keeping the 45p tax rate for higher earners.
“There is a degree of frustration as well, bordering on anger, out there. [The Tories] have been in power for 12 years and the economy has not really grown significantly at all in that period. So you’ve had this combination of low wages, and increasingly high prices have very high levels of taxation already,” Sir Keir said.
“Now, the Chancellor says it is going to be tough [and] you’re going to have to pay to mop up the mess that they made.”
“Bubbling under is a real sense of frustration… the Government has damaged the economy but it is rationally and patiently saying ‘oh we will all have to pay a bit more’. Well they’ve caused this problem.”
Ms Reeves said the warnings from the Chancellor about incoming spending cuts and tax increases were “like going back to 2010 again” when the then Tory government introduced austerity measures.
“What we got from the Chancellor at the weekend is that everyone’s going to have to pay more in taxes without recognising that, actually, those with the broadest shoulders have got more ability to pay more taxes than those who are already struggling,” the shadow Chancellor said.
“The people, everyone we’ve met today, are already seeing their incomes eroded by inflation, higher gas electricity bills, food prices, the cost of petrol to fill up the car, higher mortgages or rents.
“And the Chancellor is saying, you know, because of the mess that we have made, because the errors we have made, you’re going have to buy now pay more in taxes on top of all of that.”
She said Labour would want to make any tax changes “fairer” rather than going to “ordinary working people and saying you’ve got to pay more because of our mistakes”.
But both were hesitant to call for more household support for rising energy bills past April – when the Government’s current price cap expires.
Instead, they said their priority was on a long-term plan for improving home insulation to save energy and money.
Sir Keir described possible handouts as a “short-term, sticking plaster” and said the “only sustainable answer” was to bring forward plans for better insulation to keep people’s bills low and more economic stability.
“A sticking plaster approach is not good enough,” Ms Reeves agreed. “It’s just always short-term measures, rather than taking the action that is needed to fix some of these big problems.”
“If we had just started with, older people, people whose homes are terribly inefficient, we could have probably saved £1,000 on the average bill, not just for one year, but permanently.
“We know that these things won’t happen overnight. We’re not going to apologise for that, because you’ve got to start tackling some of the long-term problems in our economy and in our public services.”
A Labour source said that the party was not ruling out support for more emergency support payments but stressed the priority was pushing for long-term stability, not short-term cash grants.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves spoke to i during a visit to a new housing development in Milton Keynes, where they met with first-time buyers struggling to get into the housing market.
Labour’s proposals include extending the existing windfall tax on gas and oil companies further, increasing corporation tax for large multinationals, and closing the non-dom tax status that allows overseas nationals who live in the UK to avoid paying tax.
Asked which, if any, Government spending cuts Labour would support, Ms Reeves said Labour believed its additional tax measures would raise tens of billions in additional revenue.
An Amazon spokesman said: “We are investing heavily in creating jobs and infrastructure across the UK – more than £43bn since 2010. The UK has now become one of Amazon’s largest global hubs and we have more than 70,000 employees across the country. This continued investment helped contribute to a total tax contribution of £2.77 billion during 2021 – £648m in direct taxes and £2.13bn in indirect taxes. Based on analysis from PwC, Amazon ranks in the top 15 largest UK taxpayers for taxes borne and collected, as well as for the overall total tax contribution.”
>Tax Amazon and non-doms more instead of targeting lower earners, says Keir Starmer
Can’t see Sunak forcing his Mrs to pay her share, be a frosty atmosphere in Downing St.
>Tax Amazon
Good luck with that, has any country on the planet managed to do that?
the most “Labour” thing he has said in months. I should not be as shocked as I am about this
Spoiler: it was the middle class who ended up paying.
If Starmer would just make this a central plank of the Labour policy I’d bloody queue up to vote for them.
The way that multi-national companies shuffle money around to minimise tax is a huge scandal. Claiming all the value in the company is vested in some stupid legal document stowed away in a tax haven and that all the profits happen there.
For me the one tiny silver lining to Brexit is that we no longer have our hands tied. Tax rules we apply to tax havens we can now apply to all those countries which are blatant enablers of moving money to tax havens. Several EU countries have been all too happy to enable it and we were unable to deal with things like the “Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich” previously but we can now.
Come on Starmer – get on the case!
Taxing any corporation is like taxing a ghost. There is a reason why Amazon and corporate America stays rich and one of the key reasons is it not paying tax
The “black hole” is an OBR ***forecast*** it doesn’t actually exist. Don’t be fooled by the government rhetoric.
Amen, try to close tax loopholes as well if possible.
We really should hold you to that when you get elected, Mr Starmer.
Careful now. That’s the kind of sensible economic policy that can get a person branded antisemitic.
I find these calls very frustrating because they’re so light on details. “Tax rich tax avoiders.” Well, duh.
How about a commitment to abolish non-dom status for people who live here, abolish the use of trusts, shell companies and LLPs as vehicles to avoid tax and bring income from wealth into line with income from work?
Dam boss looks like it’s going to cost us the equivalent of at least 2p more in Tax per unit sold. Ok cool ummmmmmmmm add 25p to the price of every unit we sell. But boss that 23p more than the Tax increase imposed. I know, my bonus is looking good this year.
The system needs a massive overhaul & rethink … it’s presently doesn’t work. Big business needs to pay taxes & invest in local communities etc working people need to be treated fairer … less loop holes for the rich.
The mechanics of profit & pay doesn’t add up … most big business could pay more tax & pay their staff fairly … why is this even up for debate it should be the very minimum
The rich can afford to pay more tax … it’s ridiculous the privileges they are afforded to avoid paying a fair amount of tax on earnings / profits / investments etc
Non doms take advantage of living in uk as it’s a safe place to live & cool play ground for them > London culture & shopping etc plus big country houses … if want all that then pay into the system … if not go away … pay tax or leave
How is they ran energy crisis if energy companies are making £9 billion profit … it’s a joke
Years of bad planning & under investment in greener technology on so many front … petroleum industry … car industry etc
There is enough money in the pot for a fairer system that works for all. But sadly the system & thinking is broken
Or, do both and have enough money to pump into public services for once.
Better public services would benefit the lower earners a lot, so a small tax rise wouldn’t be so bad.
Thats how labour should be. The tories want to lump more of the burden of their failures into people who work for their money.
No, we need to put more of the burden on people who own for their money.
Fuck yeah, but don’t forget Google, Facebook, and Apple
>Tax Amazon and non-doms
Then they leave bringing in less money. Yes we don’t tax them enough but companies have proved already that they’ll move to the EU or another countries because they don’t like paying taxes or anything.
A simple 1% levy on gross income would generate some 3B per year — and they wouldn’t be able to escape it via some tax haven as they do now
He needs to take a simpler and more aggressive line: “stop raising taxes on the poor”
Sounds like someone’s about to be accused of being anti semetic
And put Truss in prison please. In the 44 days she was in power, she was active for only 34 of them due to the Queen’s death.
She cost the country £30 billion.
£30 billion. That’s the cost of 3 James Webb Space Telescopes. Or the cost of a decent sized hospital or a several schools.
Her premiership was criminal.
well it’s a bit late for Amazon as they made a massive loss and are cutting staff and investment and non dom it’s a start but not good enough
We should also tackle Amazon dodging paying tax all together, raising their tax just means more tax evasion from them.
A while ago, they were talking about adding a 2% “online tax” to help out the high street. Wonder what happened to that.
At the end of the day, any business can have an office anywhere. They’ll pay local taxes on business done in those areas, and much of this will come in the form of employee taxes too. Obviously we need to think about the bollocks that is Amazon SARL.
I dislike the way mega corporations are able to influence just about everything. A few years ago it was Amazon’s HQ2, where officials in the US were all trying to offer the best deals to get Amazon to go to their city/state.
Right now, the UK has the workforce, which gets investment in because big businesses find it easier to just set up an office here than moving everyone to the US. We’re already seeing this on a city level where Birmingham has had a lot of growth, some of it fuelled by a lot of international big players setting up offices here. Sure, it’s not the front office investment bankers, but there are still a lot of jobs being moved here.
We need to continue investing in education to keep the workforce strong, which in turn keeps investment in the UK going.
I don’t understand how major companies get away with little to no tax, yet regular everyday people have to pay lots.
Surely it makes more sense having those companies/people making millions/billions being taxed more. A few million/billion from a single company is far more effective than a few thousand here and there from people.
There is a 2nd big story here. Labour are looking to insulate homes as an option to the fuel crisis which is a fantastic move. I dont think its going to be quite as simples as shown here but its a much better way of doing things than just paying for peoples power. I hope they make a point of this, i can see it being a vote winner
Controversial opinion: I’m a non-Dom
The reason I’m non-Dom us because it is more efficient for me to pay more tax in the UK than to hire tax accountants around the world to sort out my tax situation in ever tax jurisdiction.
I pay 30k a year in taxes, when I should be paying nearly nothing (I’m on a studentship and make like 17k a year).
If I did pay the normal tax rate on my global income, I would owe like 22k on a good year, exactly zero in the current economy.
I’m all for them raising non-dom rates in a progressive tax system so that someone making millions a year isn’t paying the same 30k as me, but I doubt it will be that way, and if they raise it much more I’ll just leave the UK.
29 comments
Wealthy non-doms and big business should be paying to plug Britain’s £60bn black hole rather than ordinary taxpayers, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said.
In an exclusive interview with i, Sir Keir and the shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said ordinary working people should not have to pay higher taxes to “mop up the mess” of the Conservative Government.
On Sunday, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said everybody would be paying more tax following his Autumn Statement this Thursday.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves also said that Labour would prioritise energy efficiency – such as a programme to insulate 19 million homes – over increasing support for household energy bills in April. The Chancellor – as i reported on Sunday- is expected to bring universal energy support to an end in April with only the most vulnerable likely to receive help.
There is also potentially £50bn “on the table” in the form of windfall taxes, the Labour leader said.
Ms Reeves has said in the past that the £50bn figure could be raised by extending the existing windfall tax by two years, and backdating it to the beginning of January.
Critics of windfall taxes argue that they deter investment. When he was chancellor, Rishi Sunak did impose a windfall tax – or Energy Profits Levy – on energy companies which is expected to raise £5bn. But companies can claim a 91p rebate on every pound they invest.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves said the tax burden should fall on large multi-nationals – companies such as Amazon and Google have long been locked in rows over how little tax they pay in Britain – and those with non-domiciliary tax status, or so-called non-doms.
Non-doms, who until recently included the Prime Minister’s wife, Akshata Murty, are people who live in the UK but claim for tax purposes that their permanent home is abroad so they don’t have to pay tax on foreign earnings.
Sir Keir said voters were increasingly “angry” about having to pay higher taxes when they are already financially constrained. He said he wanted to keep personal taxation as low as possible for working people.
On personal taxes, the party is in favour of cutting the basic rate of income tax to 19p but supports keeping the 45p tax rate for higher earners.
“There is a degree of frustration as well, bordering on anger, out there. [The Tories] have been in power for 12 years and the economy has not really grown significantly at all in that period. So you’ve had this combination of low wages, and increasingly high prices have very high levels of taxation already,” Sir Keir said.
“Now, the Chancellor says it is going to be tough [and] you’re going to have to pay to mop up the mess that they made.”
“Bubbling under is a real sense of frustration… the Government has damaged the economy but it is rationally and patiently saying ‘oh we will all have to pay a bit more’. Well they’ve caused this problem.”
Ms Reeves said the warnings from the Chancellor about incoming spending cuts and tax increases were “like going back to 2010 again” when the then Tory government introduced austerity measures.
“What we got from the Chancellor at the weekend is that everyone’s going to have to pay more in taxes without recognising that, actually, those with the broadest shoulders have got more ability to pay more taxes than those who are already struggling,” the shadow Chancellor said.
“The people, everyone we’ve met today, are already seeing their incomes eroded by inflation, higher gas electricity bills, food prices, the cost of petrol to fill up the car, higher mortgages or rents.
“And the Chancellor is saying, you know, because of the mess that we have made, because the errors we have made, you’re going have to buy now pay more in taxes on top of all of that.”
She said Labour would want to make any tax changes “fairer” rather than going to “ordinary working people and saying you’ve got to pay more because of our mistakes”.
But both were hesitant to call for more household support for rising energy bills past April – when the Government’s current price cap expires.
Instead, they said their priority was on a long-term plan for improving home insulation to save energy and money.
Sir Keir described possible handouts as a “short-term, sticking plaster” and said the “only sustainable answer” was to bring forward plans for better insulation to keep people’s bills low and more economic stability.
“A sticking plaster approach is not good enough,” Ms Reeves agreed. “It’s just always short-term measures, rather than taking the action that is needed to fix some of these big problems.”
“If we had just started with, older people, people whose homes are terribly inefficient, we could have probably saved £1,000 on the average bill, not just for one year, but permanently.
“We know that these things won’t happen overnight. We’re not going to apologise for that, because you’ve got to start tackling some of the long-term problems in our economy and in our public services.”
A Labour source said that the party was not ruling out support for more emergency support payments but stressed the priority was pushing for long-term stability, not short-term cash grants.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves spoke to i during a visit to a new housing development in Milton Keynes, where they met with first-time buyers struggling to get into the housing market.
Labour’s proposals include extending the existing windfall tax on gas and oil companies further, increasing corporation tax for large multinationals, and closing the non-dom tax status that allows overseas nationals who live in the UK to avoid paying tax.
Asked which, if any, Government spending cuts Labour would support, Ms Reeves said Labour believed its additional tax measures would raise tens of billions in additional revenue.
An Amazon spokesman said: “We are investing heavily in creating jobs and infrastructure across the UK – more than £43bn since 2010. The UK has now become one of Amazon’s largest global hubs and we have more than 70,000 employees across the country. This continued investment helped contribute to a total tax contribution of £2.77 billion during 2021 – £648m in direct taxes and £2.13bn in indirect taxes. Based on analysis from PwC, Amazon ranks in the top 15 largest UK taxpayers for taxes borne and collected, as well as for the overall total tax contribution.”
>Tax Amazon and non-doms more instead of targeting lower earners, says Keir Starmer
Can’t see Sunak forcing his Mrs to pay her share, be a frosty atmosphere in Downing St.
>Tax Amazon
Good luck with that, has any country on the planet managed to do that?
the most “Labour” thing he has said in months. I should not be as shocked as I am about this
Spoiler: it was the middle class who ended up paying.
If Starmer would just make this a central plank of the Labour policy I’d bloody queue up to vote for them.
The way that multi-national companies shuffle money around to minimise tax is a huge scandal. Claiming all the value in the company is vested in some stupid legal document stowed away in a tax haven and that all the profits happen there.
For me the one tiny silver lining to Brexit is that we no longer have our hands tied. Tax rules we apply to tax havens we can now apply to all those countries which are blatant enablers of moving money to tax havens. Several EU countries have been all too happy to enable it and we were unable to deal with things like the “Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich” previously but we can now.
Come on Starmer – get on the case!
Taxing any corporation is like taxing a ghost. There is a reason why Amazon and corporate America stays rich and one of the key reasons is it not paying tax
The “black hole” is an OBR ***forecast*** it doesn’t actually exist. Don’t be fooled by the government rhetoric.
Amen, try to close tax loopholes as well if possible.
We really should hold you to that when you get elected, Mr Starmer.
Careful now. That’s the kind of sensible economic policy that can get a person branded antisemitic.
I find these calls very frustrating because they’re so light on details. “Tax rich tax avoiders.” Well, duh.
How about a commitment to abolish non-dom status for people who live here, abolish the use of trusts, shell companies and LLPs as vehicles to avoid tax and bring income from wealth into line with income from work?
Dam boss looks like it’s going to cost us the equivalent of at least 2p more in Tax per unit sold. Ok cool ummmmmmmmm add 25p to the price of every unit we sell. But boss that 23p more than the Tax increase imposed. I know, my bonus is looking good this year.
The system needs a massive overhaul & rethink … it’s presently doesn’t work. Big business needs to pay taxes & invest in local communities etc working people need to be treated fairer … less loop holes for the rich.
The mechanics of profit & pay doesn’t add up … most big business could pay more tax & pay their staff fairly … why is this even up for debate it should be the very minimum
The rich can afford to pay more tax … it’s ridiculous the privileges they are afforded to avoid paying a fair amount of tax on earnings / profits / investments etc
Non doms take advantage of living in uk as it’s a safe place to live & cool play ground for them > London culture & shopping etc plus big country houses … if want all that then pay into the system … if not go away … pay tax or leave
How is they ran energy crisis if energy companies are making £9 billion profit … it’s a joke
Years of bad planning & under investment in greener technology on so many front … petroleum industry … car industry etc
There is enough money in the pot for a fairer system that works for all. But sadly the system & thinking is broken
Or, do both and have enough money to pump into public services for once.
Better public services would benefit the lower earners a lot, so a small tax rise wouldn’t be so bad.
Thats how labour should be. The tories want to lump more of the burden of their failures into people who work for their money.
No, we need to put more of the burden on people who own for their money.
Fuck yeah, but don’t forget Google, Facebook, and Apple
>Tax Amazon and non-doms
Then they leave bringing in less money. Yes we don’t tax them enough but companies have proved already that they’ll move to the EU or another countries because they don’t like paying taxes or anything.
A simple 1% levy on gross income would generate some 3B per year — and they wouldn’t be able to escape it via some tax haven as they do now
He needs to take a simpler and more aggressive line: “stop raising taxes on the poor”
Sounds like someone’s about to be accused of being anti semetic
And put Truss in prison please. In the 44 days she was in power, she was active for only 34 of them due to the Queen’s death.
She cost the country £30 billion.
£30 billion. That’s the cost of 3 James Webb Space Telescopes. Or the cost of a decent sized hospital or a several schools.
Her premiership was criminal.
well it’s a bit late for Amazon as they made a massive loss and are cutting staff and investment and non dom it’s a start but not good enough
We should also tackle Amazon dodging paying tax all together, raising their tax just means more tax evasion from them.
A while ago, they were talking about adding a 2% “online tax” to help out the high street. Wonder what happened to that.
At the end of the day, any business can have an office anywhere. They’ll pay local taxes on business done in those areas, and much of this will come in the form of employee taxes too. Obviously we need to think about the bollocks that is Amazon SARL.
I dislike the way mega corporations are able to influence just about everything. A few years ago it was Amazon’s HQ2, where officials in the US were all trying to offer the best deals to get Amazon to go to their city/state.
Right now, the UK has the workforce, which gets investment in because big businesses find it easier to just set up an office here than moving everyone to the US. We’re already seeing this on a city level where Birmingham has had a lot of growth, some of it fuelled by a lot of international big players setting up offices here. Sure, it’s not the front office investment bankers, but there are still a lot of jobs being moved here.
We need to continue investing in education to keep the workforce strong, which in turn keeps investment in the UK going.
I don’t understand how major companies get away with little to no tax, yet regular everyday people have to pay lots.
Surely it makes more sense having those companies/people making millions/billions being taxed more. A few million/billion from a single company is far more effective than a few thousand here and there from people.
There is a 2nd big story here. Labour are looking to insulate homes as an option to the fuel crisis which is a fantastic move. I dont think its going to be quite as simples as shown here but its a much better way of doing things than just paying for peoples power. I hope they make a point of this, i can see it being a vote winner
Controversial opinion: I’m a non-Dom
The reason I’m non-Dom us because it is more efficient for me to pay more tax in the UK than to hire tax accountants around the world to sort out my tax situation in ever tax jurisdiction.
I pay 30k a year in taxes, when I should be paying nearly nothing (I’m on a studentship and make like 17k a year).
If I did pay the normal tax rate on my global income, I would owe like 22k on a good year, exactly zero in the current economy.
I’m all for them raising non-dom rates in a progressive tax system so that someone making millions a year isn’t paying the same 30k as me, but I doubt it will be that way, and if they raise it much more I’ll just leave the UK.