Note that your chart is from the IRS for the USA, not the UK.
But Labour also got to power with a promise not to touch most taxes because they were terrified that promising to do anything big would give the Tories what they needed to dupe the electorate once more. So they adopted a meek strategy to get into power. Then people got mad that they weren’t radical once in power.
And while I support higher top rates of tax, I think you need to be very careful in what you promise from them: there ways to avoid paying taxes that are very hard to fix, especially in a world where such rates are unusual, and the tax base for these high marginal rates becomes very small very quickly: HMRC statistics say there are 26,000 taxpayers earning over £1M. If we guess they earn on average £2M each, your 90% marginal tax nets about £23bn a year. That’s a big chunk of change, and would absolutely make a difference (assuming you can collect it all) but… it’s also less than 2% of the UK budget. It’s not going to “fix poverty” in the two years which Labour is being criticised for not having achieved it in.
Probably true.
Note that your chart is from the IRS for the USA, not the UK.
But Labour also got to power with a promise not to touch most taxes because they were terrified that promising to do anything big would give the Tories what they needed to dupe the electorate once more. So they adopted a meek strategy to get into power. Then people got mad that they weren’t radical once in power.
And while I support higher top rates of tax, I think you need to be very careful in what you promise from them: there ways to avoid paying taxes that are very hard to fix, especially in a world where such rates are unusual, and the tax base for these high marginal rates becomes very small very quickly: HMRC statistics say there are 26,000 taxpayers earning over £1M. If we guess they earn on average £2M each, your 90% marginal tax nets about £23bn a year. That’s a big chunk of change, and would absolutely make a difference (assuming you can collect it all) but… it’s also less than 2% of the UK budget. It’s not going to “fix poverty” in the two years which Labour is being criticised for not having achieved it in.