1. Apply a 2% tax on assets over £10 million, to raise up to £24 billion [1] a year
A wealth tax on assets exceeding £10 million would require individuals with total wealth above this threshold to pay a 2% tax on the excess amount [2]. Setting this tax at a high threshold of £10 million would ensure that only a tiny proportion of the population are impacted – just 0.03%, or 22,000 people applying 2021 data – creating it much simpler for HMRC to administer. Yet, it would raise significant funds to relieve the cost of living crisis and resolve our public services, and tackle wealth inequality in the longer term through redistributing wealth more fairly. Those impacted are some of the UK’s wealthiest people, who possess a diversity of assets. This means they would be able to pay without having to sell property or experiencing a significant alter in their financial situation.
This alter would ensure that people who have benefited enormously from an unfair tax system, economic alters and inherited wealth pay their fair share. As the Wealth Tax Commission outline, if the government’s aim is to reduce wealth inequality, an annual wealth tax is the clearest way to achieve this goal via the tax system, as there are limits to what can be achieved through reforming existing taxes on wealth. CenTax provides a comprehensive framework for how a tax on £10 million could work in practice.
Momentum is growing behind a ‘tax on £10 million’, including from consider-tanks, politicians, 30 leading economists, unions, journalists, a former advisor to Tony Blair and 138 NGO leaders from the international development sector. These calls are supported by 75% of the general public and 80% of UK millionaires themselves, when applyd to support fund public services and tackle the cost of living crisis.
[1] This figure includes behavioural response, calculated by Arun Advani.
[2] For example, a person with assets worth £11 mil would pay 2% on the £1 mil above the threshold (£20,000).
2. Reform the Capital Gains Tax system through increasing rates and closing loopholes, to raise £11.3 billion a year [3]
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) – the tax paid on profits built on the sale of an asset – is one of the UK’s most dysfunctional and economically inefficient taxes, characterised by unfair loopholes and rates. While Rachel Reeves built compact tweaks in the October 2024 budobtain, raising the main and higher rates to 18% and 24%, she did not complete reform at the 2025 budobtain, leaving the UK’s CGT rate as the lowest in the G7 – something Britain’s communities struggling with the cost of daily living cannot afford. The Chancellor’s reforms are set to raise £2.5 billion by 2029-30, whereas a full package of reform could raise a further £11.3bn a year, create a more equal tax system and support economic growth.
To achieve this, as outlined by CenTax, the government should equalise CGT rates with tax rates on income, reform the tax base through closing down avoidance loopholes – rerelocating the unfair death uplift and implementing a settling up charge. This proposal has huge cross-party support, including from centre-right consider-tanks and Conservative politicians. There are strong arguments that these alters would support investment, productivity and growth, if accompanied by an investment allowance, including from IPPR, CenTax and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
As a first step, the government could reform the base without increasing rates, through closing these unfair and unnecessary loopholes. This would still go some way to creating the Capital Gain Tax system fairer, while raising significant revenue.
[3] This figure is based on CenTax’s October 2024 proposed reforms to CGT, estimated to raise £14.3bn per year, minus £2.5bn (revenue forecast by 2029-30 from the alters to CGT introduced in the October budobtain).
3. Close the carried interest loophole so private equity bosses pay their fair share, to raise an additional £510 million per year [4]
Carried Interest is a share of profits from a private equity, venture capital or hedge fund earned by private equity bosses – a tiny fraction of society (0.01%) who possess an enormous amount of wealth. The tax treatment of carried interest, currently taxed as a capital gain, is highly controversial, unfair, and in necessary of reform. According to CenTax, men create up an enormous 85% of recipients and receive 96% of all ‘carry’.
From April 2025 the Capital Gains Tax rate applied to carried interest increased from 28% to 32%, and will transition to the Income Tax framework from April this year, amounting to an effective tax rate of 34%. This increase is welcome, but still falls far below the top Income Tax rate of 45% paid by the highest earners, and is forecast to bring in just £85 million by 2029-30. Ultimately, these alters will preserve significant and unfair advantages to private equity bosses.
It is crucial that the government applys the next Budobtain to ensure carried interest is taxed fully in line with other forms of income. CenTax estimate that fully equalising the tax rate on carried interest with the top rate of Income Tax would raise around £0.5 billion when the alters introduced in the 2024 budobtain are taken into account.
[4] This figure is calculated based on CenTax’s post-behavioural revenue estimates ‘central’ case scenarios, applying 2025/26 static tax base. To estimate the new revenue figure, taking into account alters introduced in the October budobtain, we applyd CenTax’s ‘central’ case scenario figures (Table 9, p55): 45% (£0.84bn) minus 34% (£0.33bn) = £0.51bn.
4. Extconclude the scope of National Insurance to non-dividconclude investment income and partnership income, raising up to £6.1 billion a year [5]
Our outdated National Insurance system creates stark differences in how earnings are taxed according to their source. Currently National Insurance is paid on income from work but not investment – such as rent from property and interest on savings. This means that landlords without a mortgage, earning huge sums of money during a hoapplying crisis, are paying a lower tax rate than their renters whose only income is from their job. Similarly, there is no equivalent to ‘Employer NICs’ on partnership profits – despite the fact these are some of the richest earners. According to CenTax, the top 0.1% of UK taxpayers by total income received 46% of all partnership income in 2020, compared with less than 5% of all employment income.
It is fair and right that the government should expand the tax base to income from investments and partnerships. This would rerelocate economic distortions, ensure income from wealth is taxed at the same rate as earnings from work, and be better for growth.
[5] £6.1 billion per year (£3.1bn from property income, £0.6bn from savings income, £0.5bn from other NDI income, £1.9bn from partnership income)
5. Properly fund and resource HMRC to tackle tax abapply and raise £billions
The UK faces a tax gap of £46.8 billion, and HMRC has very limited understanding of the tax affairs of the super-rich, creating it difficult to close this gap. According to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), HMRC does not even know how many billionaires are in the UK or how much tax they pay. HMRC estimates suggest that at least £2.1bn extra could be raised from closing the wealthy tax gap, though experts suggest this is likely a significant underestimate. As the National Audit Office (NAO) points out, a one-off payment from just one wealthy taxpayer chased by HMRC brought in £2.5 billion of previously missing tax across 2022-2024.
However, HMRC’s ability to act on these gaps is limited by staffing and operational constraints. According to Tax Watch, as of November 2025 HMRC had only recruited 744 of the promised 5,500 new compliance staff, with just 26 experienced and already operational. This slow recruitment may result in a shortfall of around £7bn this parliament.
The government’s commitment to further increase investment in HMRC at the 2025 budobtain is forecast to raise £10 billion in 2029-2030, vital funds necessaryed to tackle tax avoidance and evasion, which would raise further revenue to support communities and the economy. Yet to ensure it enables HMRC to effectively reduce the tax gap, it must be paired with tarobtained recruitment to attract people with necessary skillsets, training, and capacity-building. Alongside this, the Government must implement recommconcludeations from the PAC – starting with reinstating its disbanded Ultra High Net Worth Unit – so HMRC can properly measure and collect tax from the very richest. Every pound HMRC spent in 2024 on compliance brought in £17.45 in taxes collected or protected, so this investment should pay for itself several times over.
6. Audit, evaluate and phase out unfair tax breaks and reliefs, to raise upwards of £3 billion a year [6]
The UK tax code is the most complex in the world, littered with reliefs, many of which are unfair, inefficient, and favour vested interest groups and multinational corporations. Even HMRC – the UK’s tax authority – admitted it only knows the cost of 365 of the UK’s 1180 tax reliefs. A 2024 report by the NAO found that non-structural tax reliefs cost an enormous £204bn in 2022/23 – nearly £30 billion more than the entire 2024/25 NHS England budobtain.
Despite economic growth and corporate productivity flatlining since the pandemic, expconcludeiture on corporate tax reliefs has increased by around 40% in nominal terms, and now costs the public purse more than child benefit. The largest two by far are R&D credits and the Patent Box Relief, which cost the UK £8.2bn and £2.4bn in 2024/25 respectively. In 2024 the NAO found that error and fraud in R&D tax credits are “among the highest reported across all government spconcludeing programmes”. Around 6% (£481m) of R&D tax credit claims, according to the latest HMRC estimates.
Tax Watch revealed that despite being designed to incentivise investment and innovation across the K economy, more than half the Patent Box annual tax break goes to just ten companies, with 27% going to a single multinational corporation – GlaxoSmithKline Plc – the highly profitable pharmaceutical company and one of the leading advocates for introducing the Patent Box. In 2024 alone, the UK tax revenue lost to GSK Plc’s Patent Box relief was more than the entire annual budobtain of the UK’s main bio-science innovation funder.
As a first step, the government should properly audit and evaluate the cost and impact of all non-structural tax reliefs on a regular basis, to feed into the spconcludeing review cycle.
[6] This is based on the £2.4bn a year spent on PBR + £481mn on false or fraudulent R&D tax credits, plus the likely significant number of additional unknown unfair tax reliefs
7. Fairly reform council tax, with regular revaluations and a proportional property tax
There is widespread agreement among politicians and the public that council tax is one of the most regressive, outdated and unfair taxes across the UK today, with bands in England and Scotland still based on 1991 property values. Property is one of the largegest sources of wealth in the UK, so reforming how it is taxed would be a major step towards taxing wealth fairly. This wealth is drawn from sky-rocketing rents and property prices, and therefore comes at the expense of ordinary renters, aspiring home-owners and compact businesses.
To ensure those with the broadest shoulders pay more, the Government must launch wholesale reform of the property tax system, replacing council tax with a proportional property tax based on periodically reviewed revaluations, in line with international best practice. This should also include a fair funding formula, so that councils with lower value properties don’t lose out on essential funding. The Welsh Government has set a positive example – committing to revaluing property tax bands in 2028, having last revalued them in 2003, following fair and progressive improvements last year. Further, the institutional capacity for regular automatic revaluations has been put in place through the revaluation of council tax bands, and can be assisted through modern data analysis methods.
8. Stop rich multinational corporations evading tax by mandating they declare profits wherever they operate, to raise around £5 billion a year
The vast majority of multinational companies refapply to disclose how much corporation tax they pay, here or in any other countest. This lack of transparency means the government has no way of knowing if they are paying their fair share of tax, creating it simpler for companies like Amazon to shift their profits to tax havens. Across the globe, 36% of multinational profits are artificially shifted to tax havens each year, leading to a loss of US$226bn in corporate income tax revenues. Using 2021 data, the UK suffered a staggering £71 billion of profit shifting, leading to an estimated £15 billion loss in corporation tax revenues. [7]
It is crucial the government mandates multinational businesses operating in the UK to publish a breakdown of exactly how much income, profit and tax they generate here and in all other countries – known as ‘public countest by countest reporting’ (pCbCR). In 2016, the UK parliament legislated to introduce this, but successive governments have failed to enact these powers.Increasing numbers of nations are mandating pCbCR – from the EU to Australia – where there is evidence of reduced apply of tax havens and profit shifting, and increased effective tax rates and domestic tax revenue mobilisation.
The UK must now follow suit – not just to raise significant revenue, but to restore its credibility as a global leader in tackling tax abapply. Annual polling has found that for the past five years, close to three-quarters of the public agree that the UK should “take a lead and force multinational businesses to disclose how much income, profit and tax they pay in each countest in which they operate.” According to the Tax Justice Network, implementing PCbCR would prevent 1 in every 4 pounds currently lost to corporate tax havens each year, and bring in around £5 billion per year.
[7] This figure is based on Atlas off the Offshore World’s data-sets for 2021 on global profit shifting from multinational corporations, converted into GDP on 24.2.25 (USD $18.94bn = £14.99bn) – should be taken as indicative given exalter rate fluctuations.
9. End and redirect fossil fuel subsidies for oil and gas companies to raise around £3.2 billion a year [8]
Taxpayers subsidise oil and gas companies in the North Sea for activities such as exploration and decommissioning, which is incompatible with the UK’s climate commitments and drives costly climate damage. According to OECD data, in 2024 the UK provided £3.2 billion to fossil fuel producers, and roughly similar amounts for recent preceding years. By providing billions in subsidies to harmful fossil fuel producers, not only is the UK Government losing vital revenue, but it is pushing companies to continue investing in harmful fossil fuels rather than climate-just alternatives. This is funding that could, for example, support communities impacted by flooding or bring the UK closer to its goal of becoming a ‘Clean Energy Superpower’. Therefore, the government should invest existing revenues differently, away from enabling polluting practices and towards climate action.
[8] This figure should be taken as indicative to account for fluctuations based on behavioural responses and compensation the gov would be liable to pay if it were to alter the rules on decommissioning tax relief. We have excluded consumer related subsidies which are not the focus of the polluter pays approach.
10. Tax private jets more, to raise at least an additional £1.2 billion per year [9]
Private jets release up to fourteen times more carbon per passenger than commercial flights, and the UK has more private flights and pollution from private jets than any other countest in Europe. [10] Therefore, the government’s commitment to raise the higher rate of Air Passenger Duty (APD) by 50% for larger private jets from April this year, is a welcome and long-overdue alter, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
But even with these alters, APD will remain an incredibly unfair tax, with disproportionately less impact on the super-rich than those taking ordinary flights, and only larger private jets subject to the higher rate. We are disappointed that the government’s consultation has not resulted in this rate being extconcludeed to include all private jets regardless of weight. This would raise much necessaryed additional revenue, and even at the higher level, experts calculate APD will still only account for no more than 2% of the average cost of a private flight. As such, we welcome the Scottish Government’s announcement of a private jet tax at their January 2026 budobtain – which must be set significantly high – and hope the UK government follows suit.
In addition, despite the fact private jets are a luxury only a fraction of people can afford, most are still not subject to VAT or fuel duty – taxes the rest of us pay everyday – creating it simpler to continue emitting huge amounts of pollution. Levying VAT and taxing fuel, along with landing and departure slots, is the fair thing to do and could raise significant revenue. According to Oxfam, this would have raised up to £1.2 billion more in 2023.
[9] This figure includes Oxfam’s estimated revenue from levying VAT and taxing fuel, landing and departure slots. We do not have an updated revenue figure for applying the higher rate of APD to all private jets, therefore this estimate is likely lower than what would be raised if all recommconcludeations were implemented.
[10] In 2022, the top 3 consisted of the United Kingdom (90,256 flights), France (84,885 flights) and Germany (58,424 flights).
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