The case for taxing wealth, argument by argument.
Argues that rigorous, joined-up evidence on UK wealth inequality is too scarce to justify a wealth tax — inequality has been absent from growth theory for decades and good national data is hard to come by, so the case is asserted rather than proven.
You're making the "no proof of UK wealth inequality" argument against a wealth tax. It doesn't really hold up — the data's there and it all points the same way. The IFS Deaton Review, about the most comprehensive UK study going, found the wealth gap between middle and top households grew by more than £130k in the decade after 2006, and that's already adjusted for inflation. The ONS has the richest 10% holding 41% of all wealth while the bottom half hold under a tenth. Most household wealth is housing and pensions, and both pile up at the top — home ownership among younger adults dropped from around 55% to 35% while prices went through the roof. You can argue about what to do about it, but the idea that it's unmeasured just isn't true. Learn more: https://wealthtax.now/arguments/no-proof-of-wealth-inequality/
You're making the "no proof of UK wealth inequality" argument against a wealth tax. The IFS Deaton Review finds the middle-to-top wealth gap grew from £299k to £432k after 2006, and the ONS finds the top 10% hold 41% of all wealth. It's measured — and growing. https://wealthtax.now/arguments/no-proof-of-wealth-inequality/
The UK's most comprehensive recent study of inequality documents a widening wealth divide: the gap between middle and top households (5th vs 9th wealth decile) grew from £299k to £432k in the decade after 2006 — from around 10 to about 16 years of average earnings. Home ownership for people in their 20s and early 30s fell from 55% to 35% (mid-1990s to 2017) as real house prices rose 170%, and 14% of people in their 60s now own two or more properties. Pension wealth is the fastest-growing component of wealth, and while ethnic income gaps narrowed over 25 years the ethnic wealth gaps stayed vast, with regional divergence largely housing-driven. Wealth inequality in the UK is not unproven — it is measured and growing.
Wealth is far more concentrated than income: the wealthiest 10% of households held 41% of all wealth and the wealthiest half held 91%. The "top 1% pay X% of income tax" claim ranks people by taxable income, not by wealth — and much of the largest fortunes (capital gains, assets, unrealised gains) is taxed lightly or not at all, so income-tax shares are not a measure of what the genuinely richest contribute.
The Bank of England's quantitative easing programme expanded by an estimated £300–£450 billion over the pandemic, taking total asset purchases to £895 billion. By design QE inflates asset prices, and the Bank's own analysis and the Lords Economic Affairs Committee noted it disproportionately benefits existing asset holders — i.e. the wealthy — widening the wealth gap, while the distributional effects were never properly measured.