Here’s a mad idea: why not have a well-staffed department devoted to ensuring the super-wealthy pay their taxes in full (Over-40s in UK to pay more tax under plans to fix social care crisis, 26 July)? Maybe legislation could be brought in to close tax loopholes and ensure they face penalties from, say, substantial fines to prison sentences if they don’t? Even crazier – why not bring in progressive tax rates that would rise in a stepped way? Another ludicrous idea: instead of Jeremy Corbyn’s radical goal of less than 30% tax on them, why not the completely sensible levels of Thatcher’s era of 35%-plus?
Imagine a world in which the very wealthy actually paid their fair share instead of systematically extracting wealth from the nation and squirrelling it away. In one year, this country would resolve the debts of most public services. But then I guess that would make it obvious to everyone that the rightwing talking points of the postwar era around taxes and financial responsibility have always been a sham.
Karen Abbott
Macclesfield, Cheshire
• Taxing the over-40s would be intergenerationally unfair. The millennial generation will start turning 40 this year. It has suffered most from sky-high housing costs, the move to career-average pensions and a drop in incomes following the global financial crisis.
A fairer system would be to levy national insurance on professional over-65s who continue to work in the same highly paid role after they have reached state pension age and no longer have to make national insurance contributions, which effectively gives them a 12% pay rise. Our research estimates that the government could raise over £2bn annually by asking the generation who will benefit most to bear more of the cost of their generation’s ageing.
Liz Emerson
Co-founder, Intergenerational Foundation
• As a 64-year-old, I wouldn’t object to paying more towards not just my future care but everyone’s, subject to two conditions: first, that all social care goes back to the state/NHS to avoid taxes lining the pockets of private providers and intermediaries, and second, that earners with income of over £70,000 per year by the age of 25 start to contribute to the same tune by that age and continue to do so as long as their income remains at that level.
Glyn Hambrook
Harrogate
