i'm Gary Stevenson former trader and people's economist

this is Garys Economics and today we're going to talk about tax...

okay so today i'm going to talk about one of the  most common questions i get on the channel which  

is okay you want to tax rich people well if you  tax them they're just going to leave okay so um  

this is relatively easy to deal with but before i  just take that question on i want to talk a little  

bit about the fact that in a sense it's progress  we're even talking about this because when i first  

started talking about tax what i would often get  back is you can't tax rich people rich people are  

the lifeblood of the economy it's very important  for the economy that don't tax rich people  

i think it's becoming increasingly obvious to  people that what is happening with the economy  

now is not working um the vast majority of  people want something done about inequality  

but it goes this question of  well maybe you can't tax them  

um i think it's a sign of progress that  people have accepted now we should text them  

that moves us on to this question of well can you  tax them and if you tax them are they going to  

just leave basically so this idea that if you tax  rich people they will leave is actually based on  

a misunderstanding essentially of what rich  people are so i think we have this kind of  

conception that rich people are just sort of  really talented amazing guys who have massive  

massive bank accounts or massive bags of cash  which means if you raise taxes on them they can  

take their money to another country they can take  this big bag of cash and they can just leave but  

this is not actually what rich people are um and  i explained this a lot in my video what is wealth  

rich people are rich not just because they've got  a lot of money often they do have a lot of money  

the main thing they have which makes them rich is  that they own assets um in this country the U.K.  

but also in most rich countries that's largely  property so we're talking about buildings  

this could be flats and houses people live  in or it could be the mortgage you have on 

your flat that you live in but also commercial  property so they'll own skyscrapers they'll own  

the shops and the restaurants they'll own the  buildings they'll own the shopping centres  

they'll also own the land the farmland they own  the natural resources so you know if you see those  

windmills that generate electricity or we've got  offshore oil rigs here in this country they'll  

own all of these things the natural resources the  buildings the land and every single time you use  

one of those things so every time you live in  a house or a flat every time you go to work in  

an office every time you shop in a shopping centre  every time you eat food that was grown on the land  

you pay money to these rich people it's very  important understand this rich people are rich  

because they own the assets that that we need  to live and once you understand this you realise  

that this idea that the rich will just leave is a  little it's a little bit ridiculous right because  

if the rich people leave and the reason they're  rich is because they own all of our assets well  

the assets are still here and we can still choose  to tax those assets if we choose to um i think  

the best example of this and um perhaps the only  positive thing to have come out of this ridiculous  

Russian-Ukraine war is that finally governments  decided that we're going to tax some rich people  

specifically in this case Russian oligarchs and  very famously they went after Roman Abramovich  

and Roman Abramovich he he tried to leave but  the problem is like he can't put Chelsea football  

club in a bag and take it with him and this is the  fundamental problem of rich people rich people are  

not these people are not magic you know these guys  are not gandalf the wizard they don't just have  

richness like in their blood they're  rich because they own our assets  

and even if they leave the assets are still  here um and we can choose to tax those assets  

so at the moment we live largely in a tax system  where we essentially allow rich people to choose  

where they live and to pay tax on all of their  assets where they live but we don't need to do  

that right if a rich person flees the country to  try and avoid tax but they still own for example  

your mortgage or your house or the office you work  in the government can choose to tax those assets  

and you might say well what if they sell those  assets well to be honest i think in a sense that's  

what we want right we want you to be able to  own the house that you live in without having to  

owe a massive mortgage to rich people we want you  to be able to own part of the commercial property  

in the country and the corporations in this  country you know at the moment these rich people  

they own your country they own your mortgage they  own your house right and even if they leave they  

will still own your country your mortgage on  your house and your country can choose to tax  

them on assets so so really it's very very simple  it's a question of do you want your country to be  

owned by people who pay tax or not and if you  do then it doesn't matter where they go because  

it's it's your country and you can ask the people  who own your country to pay tax on those assets so  

um i think it's it's very very simple really and  i think it all comes down to this you know Roman  

Abramovich was not able to put Chelsea football  club in a bag you know and these rich people no  

matter where they go this country will still exist  and the assets will still exist and they can be  

taxed here and um i think when you understand it  like that you realise it's actually very simple  

of course we can tax them and that raises the  question well why don't we then and um you know  

there are a lot of possible reasons why that  could be but i'm going to give you a couple  

suggested reasons number one rishi sonic is  the 222nd richest man in the country he's  

worth over 700 million pounds his father-in-law  is one of the richest men in the entire world  

and he chooses the tax laws um the previous prime  minister David Cameron made 10 million pounds  

within a year of leaving office and he made  the tax laws Tony Blair i think he's worth  

about 100 million pounds and he made the tax  laws so we are putting the tax law decisions  

entirely in their hands of people who are  multi-millionaires or maybe even billionaires  

and then they're telling us we'd love to  raise tax on rich people but unfortunately  

it's just totally impossible and um unfortunately  some people are believing it um don't believe it  

because um we can tax them it's in our power and  we can do it all we need is to um come together  

come together and all agree that that's what  we're gonna do so um yeah support the channel  

tell your friends tell your family if we want to  tax them we can and we really should thank you