James O'Brien pulls apart caller's claim everyone should pay same rate of tax
22 November 2019, 13:35
This caller said he paid "ridiculously high" tax rates and said it would be fairer if everyone paid the same tax rate. James O'Brien took less than a minute to demolish his argument.
James was discussing the Labour plan to force the top 5% to pay more tax to redistribute wealth more fairly in society.
That's when Reg called up and he was complaining about the tax rate he has. But when James asked him what the rate is, he had no idea.
Reg then claimed to have come up with a fairer way to tax people - everyone pays the same.
He said: "Everybody should pay an equal rate of tax of something like 20-25%.
"I'll give you an example of where that works very well - VAT. If you buy a tool, you would pay 20% VAT on that tool. If a multi-millionaire bought the same tool, they would pay 20% of that tool.
"This is a tax on ambition."
But James dismissed his proposal very easily. He said: "I think you're talking jibberish. If you had only known the tax rate that you called in to condemn, then I might have given you more time to expand upon your theory of epic selfishness.
"VAT is a horribly punitive tax. A single mother who is existing on Universal Credit pays the same percentage of VAT as a billionaire on everything. And that's rank."
Watch the full call at the top of the page.
