Taxing the Super-Rich

过去20年，尽管整体不平等程度的增长较为温和，但英国最富有的个人在所有收入和财富中所占的比例大幅上升。初步迹象表明，Covid-19加剧了这种“抽离”。与此同时，税收数据获取渠道的改善，开始让人们对高收入者和富人的纳税情况（和未纳税情况）有了新的了解。越来越多的证据表明，由于大多数纳税人无法获得合法的税收规划，许多收入最高的人缴纳的税款比例低于收入较低的人。几项国际研究发现，全球富人的逃税行为也比之前认为的要高。这些因素，再加上新冠疫情给公共财政带来的压力，加大了公众要求增加向“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，严重缺乏关于这个突出而神秘的群体的证据。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，更不用说他们对税收制度的反应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调查和个人轶事。由于缺乏有力的定量证据，政策制定者不可能可靠地模拟改革的收入、分配和其他经济影响；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体系不起作用。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。虽然之前的研究关注的是更广泛的高收入者群体，但我们将重点关注收入或财富排名前0.1%的人群。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，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之上。我们的跨学科团队包括律师、社会学家和经济学家，他们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和行政挑战。我们的工作将涉及五个关键领域：1)衡量：英国超级富豪拥有多少收入和财富，其构成是什么，这些份额如何随时间变化？2)特征：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？这些人通过企业关系在多大程度上相互联系？3)税收规划：超级富豪的税收规划策略对税收政策的变化反应如何？不合规的程度如何？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，它们对更广泛的经济有何影响？5)政策：英国对超级富豪征税的政策与其他国家相比如何？这些政策应该如何改革？为了回答这些问题，我们将使用过去二十年中收入最高的0.1%的每个人的个人纳税记录中的去识别数据。我们将把个人和家庭的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建立后续研究的能力。我们将根据现有的最佳证据，提供对其目标透明的政策建议，并向政策制定者和公众进行无障碍和有说服力的沟通。

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.