New data just released by HMRC shows Capital Gains Tax receipts have shot up by 16.3% in the third quarter ahead of the budget. Coming in at £572 million from July to September – compared to £492 million in 2023. Realise your gains, realise your gains…

September’s CGT receipts hit £192 million, which is the highest figure since 2008. Inheritance Tax receipts, boosted by frozen thresholds, hit £4.3 billion between April and September, a 10% increase on the year before. Evidence shows that people actually give up the ghost to avoid the death tax…

Starmer’s personal firefighting over budget speculation on an incoming Capital Gains hike hasn’t worked, then. More evidence of the Laffer Curve in action will likely present itself if Reeves chooses to hike CGT in the budget – HMRC itself predicts a 10% hike would lower revenues by £2 billion. Labour’s tax crosshairs are clearly set on growth-promoting wealth…

The Guardian reported last week that the Treasury was toying with hiking Capital Gains Tax to anywhere from 30% to 39%. Triggering rampant speculation with no tangible firefighting effort from the government…

Wealth advisers have reported a sharp spike in the number of business owners looking to sell up and leave the UK ahead of a CGT raid at the budget. A quarter of firms polled by wealth mangers Evelyn Partners said they were fast-tracking their share offloads in response to a possible tax hike, while directors at UK-listed copmanies have sold off £440 million of shares since Labour came to power. Over double the value of disposals in the previous six months…

Only now Starmer is attempting to calm flighty investors by telling Bloomberg’s Stephanie Flanders that the 39% figure is “getting wide of the mark.” Funnily enough he broke his usual no-comment-on-the-budget policy to assuage those concerns over capital gains before immediately swerving a question on whether he’d hike Employer National Insurance. Curious…

It is widely known that, according to the government’s own modelling, a 10% hike in CGT rates would actually cost Treasury coffers £2 billion in a couple of years. When CGT rates were hiked by 10% in 1988, revenues had dropped by more than a half three years later. No wonder investors are fleeing…

Labour Conference is developing a strong anti-media narrative. Starmer’s allies have taken to complaining bitterly about journalists reporting on his and his ministers’ freebie-taking…

At a pro-tax love-in this morning attended by Exchequer Secretary James Murray and a selection of high-tax activists discussed fiscal proposals including more than doubling capital gains tax and imposing additional taxation on the well-endowed. Wealth tax fanatic Arun Advani said he was “optimistic” because the Labour government is “genuinely listening” to his ideas. Which include growth-crushing expansions of existing taxes…

Ex-FT reporter and Labour rising star Yuan Yang MP rounded off the event by claiming that “access to Lobby journalists” is held primarily by vested interests and the majority of reporting on tax issues is “not representative of what people say to me on the doorstep.” She urged Labour activists present to take “action” to combat the media narrative and present the case for higher tax. No doubt those tight new controls on the press will help…

While growth is down and Reeves prepares her painful budget, tech bosses in the UK have issued grave warning against the Chancellor raising capital gains tax, something feared to be announced. They’ve rallied against the “alarming” tax hike that would drive talent away from UK start-ups. Paul Taylor, founder of billion-pound firm Thought Machine told City A.M.:

“They’re literally talking about going from one of the best capital gains regimes to the worst. It would be the highest rate in Europe. I don’t think anybody would start a company here – why would you?” 

Founder of fintech Curve added: “within a year or two, you’re going to see more companies failing”. Meanwhile, reports of the Treasury equalising capital gains in line with income tax are swirling around SW1, a move that would drive down growth and see a talent exodus. As the representative of over 250 fintech companies Innovate Finance warned, “not all capital gains are equal”…

The taxman’s next raid is looming large as investors scramble to park their cash in the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), which allows investors to halve their capital gains tax bill, before Rachel Reeves unleashes her Budget bombshell. Since Labour took the keys to Downing Street, there’s been an overflow of money pouring into the scheme, with the head of investor services at the UK’s biggest SEIS fund, SFC Capital, saying investments were up 90% since July. All to avoid taxes on ‘working people’…

Fund managers are singing the same tune: investors are liquidating assets, from shares to property, bracing for the dreaded tax hike on their gains. Meanwhile, Henley Private Wealth Migration reports that a record 9,500 millionaires will leave the UK in 2024, resulting in cash that could be filling up the Treasury’s coffers flooding out of the country instead. The party of “growth,” everyone…

Rachel Reeves has done a rare media appearance today on a visit to manufacturers in Glasgow before a CBI roundtable with Scottish businesses. She was asked three times whether she would rule out raising Capital Gains Tax or Inheritance Tax in the budget. Thrice came a non-denial…

The Treasury’s latest projection is that a CGT hike will lose billions in tax revenue per annum. At the current thresholds 1 in 8 people will pay IHT on their or their spouse’s death within 10 years. These tax hikes will hammer the middle class hard…