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Tax the old, not the rich says comedian Jimmy Carr

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Listen to the full interview with Jimmy Carr on LBC today from 4pm

Speaking to Tom Swarbrick on LBC,  Jimmy also said that there needs to be a ‘redistribution of wealth’ to help fix Britain’s economy.
Speaking to Tom Swarbrick on LBC,  Jimmy also said that there needs to be a ‘redistribution of wealth’ to help fix Britain’s economy. Picture: LBC

By Asher McShane

Comedian Jimmy Carr blasted the Chancellor’s Budget last month and said that he would cancel taxes for people in their 20s if he were a politician.

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Speaking to Tom Swarbrick on LBC,  Jimmy also said that there needs to be a ‘redistribution of wealth’ to help fix Britain’s economy.

Multi-millionaire Jimmy said that he thinks economic fixes won’t come from taxing the rich.

He said that there needs to be a transfer of wealth ‘from old to young’.

Jimmy Carr joins LBC's Tom Swarbrick today at 4pm

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He said: “It's insane that we had a budget that poor. It's insane that we have a midwit in charge. It's crazy. What we need to do is deal in young people. Yeah, we have a society where we need a redistribution of wealth. And I don't think it necessarily needs to be from rich to poor.

“I think it needs to be from old to young. I'm not concerned with inequality. I'm concerned with poverty in absolute terms, because that's fixable. Inequality isn’t.

“Different people have different motivations and abilities. There will always be hierarchies, but you want them to be natural hierarchies.  

Jimmy Carr in his new film Fackham Hall (2025).
Jimmy Carr in his new film Fackham Hall (2025). Picture: Alamy

“You want them to be justified in some way. And I think the redistribution from old to poor is all I would do.

“If I was running for office. You know what I'd run on, no taxes in your 20s, because you would incentivise young people to go and say, I'm actually not going to go to university.

“I’m going to go and get a trade. I'm going to stack cash till I'm 30, and then I'm going to buy a house and I marry her. I’m going have a kid. If the society doesn't reward that, then what's going on?”

In a wide-ranging interview he also said he wasn’t worried about being cancelled because he’s probably already told that joke.

“The joke that ends my career, it's already out there. I probably told it 15 years ago, and it's lying in wait on a DVD somewhere, and someone will be offended by it in the future, and there'll be a newspaper story, and you have to be able to wear that as well and right size it to use the therapy term, and go, look, I told a joke, and some people didn't like it.

“There's real problems in the world. Don't worry about it."