Taxing the Super-Rich

在过去20年里，英国最富有的个人在所有收入和财富中所占的份额大幅上升，尽管总体不平等程度的增加更为温和。初步迹象表明，新型冠状病毒肺炎加剧了这种“抽离”。与此同时，税收数据获取的改善已经开始为高收入者和富人缴纳和未缴纳的税款提供新的信息。有新的证据表明，由于大多数纳税人无法获得法律的税收规划，许多最高层的纳税人比低层的纳税人少。几项国际研究发现，全球富人的逃税行为也比以前认为的要高。这些因素，加上新冠肺炎疫情对公共财政造成的压力，加大了公众要求增加对“超级富豪”征税的压力。然而，重新设计现有税收的一个主要障碍是，严重缺乏有关这一知名但神秘群体的证据。在英国，人们对收入最高的0.1%人群（大约是收入超过50万英镑或财富超过500万英镑的人群）的特征知之甚少，更不用说他们如何应对税收制度或对经济的更广泛影响了。公众舆论和政府政策仍然几乎完全依赖于小规模的调查和个人轶事。由于缺乏强有力的量化证据，决策者无法可靠地模拟改革对收入、分配和其他经济的影响;这种不确定性是一种强大的惯性力量，限制了变革，尽管人们普遍认为现有制度不起作用。该项目将为英国超级富豪的特征、行为和经济影响提供新的证据，并建议对这一群体进行税收改革。以前的研究关注的是更广泛的高收入人群，而我们将关注收入或财富最高的0.1%。我们的分析将利用来自多个来源的链接管理数据的独特访问权限，建立在我们使用HMRC安全的“数据实验室”研究设施分析税务数据的记录基础上。我们的跨学科团队包括律师、社会学家和经济学家，帮助我们解读超级富豪的复杂行为，并确保我们设计的政策能够应对实施过程中的法律的和行政挑战。我们的工作将涉及五个关键领域：1）测量：英国超级富豪的收入和财富有多少，其组成是什么，以及这些份额如何随着时间的推移而变化？2)产品特点：超级富豪的主要社会经济特征是什么，他们的经济轨迹是什么，这些人通过公司关系相互联系的程度如何？3)税务规划：超级富豪的税务规划策略对税收政策变化的反应如何，不遵守的程度如何？4)经济影响：税收政策如何影响超级富豪的投资和选址决策，以及它们对更广泛的经济有何影响？5)政策：与其他国家相比，英国对超级富豪征税的政策如何？这些政策应该如何改革？为了回答这些问题，我们将使用过去20年中前0.1%的个人纳税记录中的去识别数据。我们将在个人和家庭层面将这些记录与他们工作、管理或作为大股东拥有的公司的数据联系起来。我们还将把土地所有权、移民身份和（作为样本）财富调查数据联系起来。除了我们的发现对知识的直接贡献外，这个雄心勃勃的新数据基础设施将有助于为后续研究建立能力。我们将根据现有最佳证据，提供目标透明的政策建议，并以通俗易懂和令人信服的方式向政策制定者和公众传达。

The share of all income and wealth going to the UK's richest individuals has risen substantially over the past two decades, despite more muted increases in overall inequality. Initial signs are that Covid-19 has exacerbated this 'pulling away'. Meanwhile, improved access to tax data has begun to shed new light on the taxes paid - and not paid - by top earners and the wealthy. There is emerging evidence that many at the very top pay proportionally less in tax than those lower down, due to legal tax planning not available to the majority of taxpayers. Several international studies find that tax evasion by the global rich is also higher than previously thought. These factors, together with the strain on public finances from Covid-19, have intensified public pressure to increase the revenues collected from the 'super-rich'.However, a major barrier to re-designing existing taxes is the severe lack of evidence on this prominent yet enigmatic group. In the UK, very little is known about the characteristics of those within the top 0.1% - roughly those above £500,000 in income or £5 million in wealth - let alone how they respond to the tax system or their wider impacts on the economy. Public opinion and government policy remains almost exclusively reliant on small-scale surveys and individual anecdotes. The lack of robust quantitative evidence makes it impossible for policymakers to reliably model the revenue, distributional and other economic impacts of reforms; this uncertainty is a powerful force of inertia limiting change despite the widespread perception that the existing system is not working.This project will create new evidence on the characteristics, behaviours and economic impacts of the UK's super-rich, and recommend reforms to taxes on this group. Whereas previous studies have looked at a much broader cohort of high earners, we will focus on those in the top 0.1% by either income or wealth. Our analysis will leverage unique access to linked administrative data from multiple sources, building on our track record of analysing tax data using HMRC's secure 'Datalab' research facility. Our interdisciplinary team includes lawyers and sociologists as well as economists, helping us to interpret the complex behaviours of the super-rich and ensuring that we design policies that attend to the legal and administrative challenges of implementation.Our work will address five key areas:1) Measurement: How much income and wealth do the UK's super-rich have, what is its composition, and how have these shares changed over time?2) Characteristics: What are the key socio-economic characteristics of the super-rich, what are their economic trajectories and to what extent are these individuals interconnected via corporate ties? 3) Tax planning: How responsive are the tax planning strategies of the super-rich to changes in tax policy and what is the extent of non-compliance?4) Economic impacts: How are the investment and location decisions of the super-rich affected by tax policy and what is their impact on the wider economy?5) Policy: How do the UK's policies for taxing the super-rich compare with other countries and how should these policies be reformed?To answer these questions, we will use de-identified data from the personal tax records of every individual within the top 0.1% spanning the past two decades. We will link these records at both individual and household levels, together with data on the companies that they work for, manage, or own as major shareholders. We will also link data on land ownership, immigration status and (for a sample) survey data on wealth. As well as the direct contribution to knowledge from our findings, this ambitious new data infrastructure will help to build capacity for subsequent research. We will provide policy recommendations that are transparent about their aims, based on the best available evidence, and communicated accessibly and compellingly to policymakers and the public.