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Tell Rachel Reeves: Tax Their Billions
Rachel Reeves is about to announce her Spring Budget. We’re asking the Chancellor: Whose side are you on? Why are you cutting aid and benefits for the poorest, when the wealth of the super-rich is out of control?
Take action:
We’re flooding Rachel Reeves’s social media accounts with calls for a billionaire tax. Here’s how you can join:
Share a comment on Rachel Reeves Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram accounts in two simple steps:
Copy one of the following comments, or draft your own.
- Whose side are you on, Rachel Reeves? Why are you removing benefits and cutting public services instead of taxing the richest people in society fairly?
- Why are you letting billionaires and multi-millionaires get away with not paying their fair share? The money for better healthcare and cheaper, cleaner energy exists, and it should come from taxing the richest, not the poorest.
- When will you listen? The people want a tax on the super-rich, not more cuts and austerity policies.
2. Share it on any recent post on Rachel Reeves’s social media accounts:
Tax their billions to fund renewable energy for all!
Oil giants like BP are going all-in on oil and gas, despite the fact that the green economy is booming in the UK. Renewable energy is the future, and polluting fossil fuels are the past. And this is how our shift to affordable, renewable energy and better public services for all could be funded:
We call on the UK Government to back national and global wealth taxes on the mega-rich and for permanent, increased taxes on polluting fossil fuel corporations. This will generate billions of pounds that should pay for the transition to affordable, renewable energy at home, and in the countries that are least responsible for the climate crisis as well as funding vital services like the NHS and eradicating poverty in our wider communities.
Sign now to demand action:
The richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of the Earth’s population. [1]
While many of us are hit with energy bills we can’t afford and faced with cold, damp homes during winter, we are about to witness history’s first trillionaire. Rich people are getting richer, while the rest of us are becoming worse off. In France, for instance, the average taxpayer in 2016 gave 48 percent of earnings to the government, while billionaires paid just 26 percent. And the mega-rich in the UK can leverage various strategies to lower their effective tax rates compared to the average taxpayer. [2]
What’s the solution?
Billionaires are greedily stockpiling money, while the planet burns and people suffer.
The solution is simple: By pushing governments to increase taxation on the super rich and fossil fuel giants in the UK and around the world, we can redirect excessive wealth towards climate action. We can fund the rapid roll-out of heat pumps, electrifying public transport, insulating our homes and building renewable energy around the world at the speed and scale needed to help limit global heating. This would lower costs and increase access to affordable renewable energy around the world. And it reduces emissions to ensure a livable planet for the future.
A fair minimum tax on multi millionaires and billionaires could go a long way to turning climate promises into climate action. And it shouldn’t stop there. There are so many urgent issues that need more investment, like the NHS, public transport, and support for people living in fuel poverty.
This kind of tax is not radical. What defies all logic is continuing to let the people with the most amount of wealth on earth pay less income tax than the rest of us and exploit our shared resources while doing so. Together, we can make sure the bill for climate action is paid for by the greediest. And that the money they pay will go towards a better world with strong communities, affordable, renewable energy for all and quality local services like housing and healthcare.
Sources:
1: Oxfam, 2023. "Climate inequality: A planet for the 99%."
2: Oxfam 2023. "The super-rich pay lower taxes than you and here's how they do it."
