An EU-funded think tank is now pushing for a global minimum wealth tax of 2% as the “logical next step” after Sunak’s favourite global minimum corporation tax. The EU Tax Observatory gets €1.2 million annually directly from the EU and is run by high-tax ultra Gabriel Zucman who is obsessed with tax havens. It wants governments to initiate talks at the G20 summit in Brazil in November 2024. Wealth taxes were previously standard across Europe but were all scrapped because they failed…

Jacob Rees-Mogg led the charge against the minimum corporation tax this year and tells Guido “taxation is a national not a multi-national responsibility. The EU is always looking for ways to extend its powers and this is another example“. The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time the bureaucrats get together…

The ASI’s Duncan Simpson says that wealthy people obviously “don’t have piles of cash just sitting around” and would have to sell tied-down assets to pay the tax. Instead of doing that they “will simply leave, taking their money with them and ultimately reducing tax receipts“. Sunak will probably be interested…

After last week’s advert claiming Rishi Sunak doesn’t want to lock up paedophiles, the latest attack ad is a bit more reality-based. A bit. It claims fairly that the Tories have raised taxes 24 times and the British people face the highest tax burden in 70 years. So far, so reality based. The claim that is less plausible is that an energy windfall tax will pay for a freeze of council tax. The same windfall tax that has been pledged for so many other spending commitments.

Taxes, as Nigel Lawson often reminded us, pay for spending: if you want lower taxes, you need lower spending. The problem with Labour adopting the rhetoric of the Taxpayers’ Alliance is that, as a shadow minister told the i’s Paul Waugh, totting up all the spending pledges meant “a f****** £700 billion price tag”.“In theory, we are only committed to £280 billion over 10 years but the climate investment pledge can’t pay for everything we’ve said on Northern Powerhouse Rail or full HS2 – we are committed to both.” It is fantasy economics that Rachel Reeves will not be able to bluff and bluster about for much longer.

The advert references closing the non-domicile “loophole”. Foreigners coming to spend and invest in the UK do so on the understanding that their foreign earnings will be outside the jurisdiction of the UK tax regime; their income and remittances to the UK will be taxed just like everybody else’s in Britain. That’s not a “loophole”, that is a sensibly-designed tax principle that encourages foreigners to create jobs and boost the British economy with inward investment. Gordon Brown understood this and left the rule in place for all his time.

Norway’s centre-left government has just discovered what happens when you try to squeeze the super-mobile wealthy. The wealthy are leaving and the government seems shocked. Billions in lost revenue will now have to be made up for by people on lower incomes. There is a lesson here.

The latest development in Labour’s rollercoaster ride to deciding their policy on a wealth tax takes another turn today, as Guido can reveal footage of Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds nodding along to Shadow Treasury Minister Dan Carden’s warm words about wealth tax proposals. Labour must have told their top team to act more Churchillian – Anneliese clearly got the wrong end of the stick…

For those struggling to keep up:

05/07: Dodds dodged the question of whether Labour supports a wealth tax four times

06/07: Starmer openly supports a wealth tax

08/07: Dodds’ response to Rishi’s mini-budget says Labour “is not calling for tax rises”

10/07: Shadow Treasury Minister Dan Carden says the idea Labour has backed down from supporting a wealth tax is “false”

12/07: Lucy Powell failed to give any clarification of Labour’s policy

16/07: Dodds refuses to clarify tax plans in car crash interview

We now have footage of Labour’s shadow treasury team waxing lyrical about the policy in ‘private’. We all know Labour’s agreed on the policy, they’re just keeping it quiet to avoid it getting torn to bits this far ahead of the next election…

Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds had a shocker this morning on The Today Programme, attempting to swerve questions about Labour’s confusing wealth tax policy plans. After a two week long back and forth over being explicit about possibly tax hikes, the party’s new position appears to be ‘avoid the question’. With excruciating results…

Dodds’ initial swerve was to say there should be no tax hikes in the Autumn – an uncontroversial view as the economic fallout of the pandemic recession begins to bite. When Mishal asked about how the Government’s enormous lockdown spending should be paid for further down the line, the Shadow Chancellor descended into a babbling mess, continually speaking over Mishal’s questions and avoiding answers. No wonder there’s talk of Sir Keir regretting his pick…

In case you were struggling to keep up, the story so far (all in the last week) is:

Sunday: Dodds dodged the question of whether Labour supports a wealth tax four times

Monday: Starmer openly supports a wealth tax

Wednesday: Dodds’ response to Rishi’s mini-budget says Labour “is not calling for tax rises”

Friday: Shadow Treasury Minister Dan Carden says the idea Labour has backed down from supporting a wealth tax is “false”

That “forensic” Starmer leadership rolls on…

Labour’s position on taxing people’s homes and savings plunged further into chaos last night as Shadow Treasury Minister Dan Carden put out a statement decrying the idea that Labour has backtracked from their wealth tax plans as “false”. This denial came just a day after Labour first u-turned on their wealth tax proposals…

“This is false. Labour is clear that the cost of the crisis should be borne by those with the broadest shoulders. We are following very closely the academic research under way by LSE Inequalities, CAGE Warwick and others on how a UK wealth tax would work.”

From mini-budget day until last night Labour had been at pains to imply it did not want to tax people out of the economic crisis, preferring instead to grow the economy to deal with debt, a surprisingly age-old traditional Tory message that came after Labour’s wealth tax proposals were badly received. Now it seems like not everyone in the Treasury team got the memo, with serious shadow treasury work going into the plans…