Too Long; Didn't Read: Ep 2. It's a taxing subject

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Hello, lovely Friday night comedy people.

I'm Catherine Bohart and I'm here to tell you that if you're in the UK, you can now listen to brand new episodes of my series Too Long Didn't Read and all the other Friday Night Comedy shows first on BBC Sounds, seven days earlier than anywhere else.

Just go to BBC Sounds, subscribe to Friday Night Comedy, and I can't stress this enough, make sure that you have push notifications turned on.

That way you'll get alerted as soon as new episodes become available.

Although, here's a big clue: it's always on Friday.

Listen to Friday Night Comedy first on BBC Sounds.

Welcome to Too Long Didn't Read, the show that does for the news what the women's Euros did for football.

Makes it more interesting by adding a lighter touch, a sapphic team spirit, and a foreign woman in charge.

We're asking the questions about the news you're too scared to ask, like, heated what?

No, seriously?

I never would have seen those two together.

Wait, who's dead?

Hang on, I have to call my mom.

We are basically like, if everyone on the Today program had pre-gamed.

I'm Catherine Bohart and I love the news.

Okay, I like the news.

Okay, fine.

I will sometimes talk about the news at a party if there's no one kissing that I can watch.

Obviously, my top story of the week is that Katie Perry has been spotted on a date with ex-Canadian PM.

This woman's already nodding.

Justin Trudeau.

Be still our beating hearts.

Wow.

Usually when I see a starlet dating a politician, I worry for her, but I'm just so glad Katie doesn't have another horrible English boyfriend.

We love to see the Canadian version of Lembed Opic and the cheeky girls forming before our very eyes.

But what else has been happening in the news?

Well, resident doctors have been on strike, but don't worry, it's only $2.99 for a DIY colonoscopy on TaskRabbit.

Resident doctors striking, but who are resident doctors?

Well, they're junior doctors.

That's right.

It wasn't just a strike, it was a rebrand.

Fine by me, because when I hear junior doctor, I think, oh no, a child doctor.

Will the coat be too big?

Will the stethoscope fit in their tiny junior ears?

Patients were asked to use NHS 111 as their first port of coal or simply remember the handy rhyme, unless you're turning blue, there's not a lot we can do.

The Online Safety Act has come into effect this summer, meaning young people will now have to go back to getting pornography from traditional places like their dad's shed.

The Online Safety Act has come into effect this summer and the suspicion is that many young people will simply buy a VPN to circumnavigate age checks on porn.

Indeed, the sale of VPNs has immediately shot up because teenage boys want what they want.

And the googling of what a VPN is has also gone up

because dads too want what they want.

Critics of the Act believe that having to input so much personal data to obtain access to websites that were previously easier to enter gives companies too much power.

To access pornography, users will now need photo IDs such as their passports, driving licence or parliamentary pass.

In other news, Trump and Starmer have been hanging out in Scotland.

Trump described Starmer as slightly more liberal than me, but to be fair, so are Kim Jong-un and Bauko Haram.

Trump was surprisingly impressed with Starmer, Victoria Starmer.

He described Victoria as the perfect wife, congratulating Keir, saying it's never easy to achieve that.

Oh, he's grim, all right.

I genuinely think Trump has a crush.

He also said she was a respected person all over the United States, which was a shock to most Britons who just found found out she exists.

Although the meeting seemed to go well, it's not over till Trump posts about you on Truth Social.

And he may like Keir Starmer, but he likes drilling oil more.

Less than a day after their meeting, Trump posted on socials criticising North Sea oil taxes.

Wow, what a bitch.

At least save it for a group chat, you little stirrer.

The Lionesses brought it home this week, beating world champion Spain in a 3-1 penalty shootout to win the Euros for the second time in a row.

In celebration of this historic win, the Lionesses were invited to a party at Downing Street.

They won.

Why are we punishing them?

After that, they were made to go on an open-top bus parade through London.

Seriously, do we hate these women?

Have you been on an open top bus tour?

Hey girls, congrats.

Now we're going to make you sit in London traffic on a bus with no roof, probably in the rain.

What would we do if they'd lost?

But this week, we're talking Cabbage Loot Moolah.

That's money, by the way, not new queer slang.

Although cabbage, loot, moolah is my favourite drag act.

We are specifically looking at extreme wealth and why the UK government seems so reticent to ask for their cut of it.

This week, over 30 economists from leading UK and international universities have written an open letter to Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves asking for a UK wealth tax.

Wow.

I love an open letter.

It's so passag.

Oh what?

Everyone can read this?

Oh no!

At the same time, a heavily criticised wealth migration report from Henley and Partners claims 16,000 millionaires will leave the UK this year if a wealth tax is introduced.

Has no one heard of an Irish exit?

If you're gonna leave, don't make a big deal of it.

Just take your coat, drain your drink and slink off into the night, you absolute attention whores.

This comes at a juncture when Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana are creating their new party, Your Party, or the Left Party, or the Left.

They're definitely going to name it once they do the gender reveal.

The two have been calling for greater wealth distribution amidst the growing divide between rich and poor in the UK.

So, I have many questions.

Should Rachel Reeves consider a wealth tax?

Will a wealth tax lead to a mass exodus of the wealthy?

If you filled a swimming pool with coins, could you swim in it, or would you just bounce off?

So, to help me unpick the Scrooges from the Scroungers, joining me is a comedian and baroness, so she has got a foot in both camps.

It's Aisha Hazarika, everybody!

So, Aisha, wealth tax.

I know what that is.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, boy, do I.

But just in case anyone at home doesn't, just for them, could you narrow it down a little for us?

Okay, well, I'm sure many of you in the room know that there are three things that you cannot avoid in life.

Death, taxes, and if you're a menopausal woman, chin hair.

So what I've done is split this into two sections.

Okay.

and I've made a handy explainer called What is a Wealth Tax and Which Tax is What Tax?

Okay, excellent.

I'm already confused and it's just the title.

Just before we start, this is my disclaimer.

I am not cosplaying Martin Lewis here, all right?

I just want to get that straight.

So, basically, a wealth tax is a tax which is applied to the total value of someone's assets, such as property, investments, and savings.

So basically, you're adding together the value of someone's land, art, investment portfolio, and classic car collection.

The kind of stuff you've all got at home, Jim Smooth.

I was going to say, what if your main asset is just your dazzling personality?

Well, that's exempt, which is a big relief for so many senior politicians and so many very rich folk.

I mean, shine on, you crazy diamond.

This is a wealth tax on top of other taxes.

It is.

And the kind of thinking is you're talking about people who've got assets worth more than 10 million pounds.

So, like many people in the audience here, assets are more than

your sort of wealth tax is on top of other taxes.

So, for example, a wealth tax would be paid on top of something called capital gains tax.

And capital gains tax is when you sell an asset which has increased in value.

And that could be anything from a house that isn't your main residence,

or like a painting, or a yacht.

Again, very much the kind of thing you'd have lying around your garage.

Do you know what I mean?

Oh, that Bangor or that yacht, you know, all that kind of thing.

A wealth tax would also be paid on top of something called a dividend tax that you might have heard about as well.

And a dividend tax is a tax on the payment that a company makes to shareholders.

Okay, got you.

Do you know who my favorite shareholder was?

Go on.

Sonny Bono.

Oh, God.

You're not born to me.

It's hard to be funny on tax.

A wealth tax would also be on top of tax that you pay on your savings.

So if you earn interest on savings over a certain amount, and the final thing that you need to remember as well is inheritance tax.

So there are these other taxes, but a wealth tax would be paid on top of that.

Okay, so the wealthy are actually already paying loads of taxes by the side of things.

They're already paying all these different taxes.

There are many taxes which exist, but that doesn't mean that everybody is necessarily paying them.

I'd like to get a gauge of the room on this.

Out the gate, before we get into it, who would be pro a wealth tax?

Okay, so strong sentiments towards interesting.

By the way, for the listener at home, everyone put up their hand because they're such a polite audience.

Only two women ventured to woo, and even then it looked like they thought they were being crazy.

Okay, so out the gate, did you have feelings on this?

So, instinctively to me, it does feel like a no-brainer because those with the broader shoulders should be paying a bit more, and particularly if you've got a sort of succession-style lifestyle, while the rest of us are really struggling, and things are so expensive, your biggest luxury in life is a pack of Lurpak.

Like, that's how bad things are.

And I find it really confusing because some of my favourite politicians, like Neil Kinnock, are very pro a wealth tax, and some of my favourite economists are very much against it.

I can't believe you have a favourite economist.

We are different women.

I have favourite think tanks.

Wow.

I can't believe I'm single.

It's amazing.

Okay, but it does seem really complicated, as I've said.

What are the arguments for?

What are the arguments against?

Often it's seen as quite an anti-growth measure, but the biggest argument against it is that very, very wealthy people are very, very good at hiding their assets, right?

It's a bit like ladies in the room when you're on a budget and then you do a Zara haul and you've got to hide it from your partner.

It's that kind of thing.

The other big argument you'll hear is this thing called flight risk.

And you'll have read all these reports about millionaires leaving in large numbers to head for these other countries, which are a bit more wealth-friendly, like Dubai or Italy.

Although having to leave for Dubai feels like a big enough punishment, it does, it genuinely does.

I wonder some gay millionaires, where are they gonna?

I guess Italy, yeah.

But what's interesting is some of these reports have been criticised that they are a bit shonky.

And I suppose the other question, if we're doing critical thinking, is: are the rich using their power to influence the news in terms of favouring them?

Surely not.

And also, the other thing is, haven't we always had these scare stories?

Like every time we're about to introduce like a progressive policy, I remember back in nineteen ninety seven, we were told that the economy was going to collapse because of the introduction of the national minimum wage.

And also, I think the other question we have to test is what motivates rich people to come and live here?

Is it just purely transactional?

Is it just about the tax code?

What about the other things we've got to offer?

You know, our history, culture, arts, stability, our amazing weather.

You know, there's like, you know, I know that you lost everybody else at weather, but as an Irish woman, you lost me in history.

Go on.

Listen, don't also forget our amazing ability to always stand outside a pub, whatever the weather conditions.

I mean, you don't get that in every country, which is probably why Ellen has just moved.

Actually, a lot of Americans are moving over to the UK, so we can't be that bad, right?

That's a low bar, sure.

Yeah.

Why are the lesbians moving to the cops walls?

They already have the footwear.

Yeah, yeah, maybe that.

Were there other reasons you might want to?

Yeah, well, I also sort of think that there's lots of things that like super wealthy people will enjoy in this country, which are paid for by all our taxes, like, you know, the NHS.

Do you think the uber-rich are going to the NHS?

Yeah, because sometimes plastic surgery goes wrong.

Oh,

yeah, sometimes there's an emergency in the private hospital.

You often hear this argument as well.

Oh, no one else has done it.

But actually, Norway has introduced a wealth tax.

And it's really interesting because they only lost 0.01%

of their millionaires.

And we've got more than 3 million millionaires in the United States.

Yeah.

Wow.

You cannot tell.

I guess British men dress really badly, huh?

I wouldn't have guessed 3 million, no offense.

Amazing.

But hang on, presumably, if that's 0.01%, that sounds small, but I guess if you lose the Norwegian Bezos,

then you're actually losing a huge amount of.

It kind of depends, right?

Yeah.

Well, this feels like a touchy subject.

Not to tip my hat on this issue, but are the UK population in favour of the wealthy paying more tax, or are they a bunch of boot-licking cucks?

Two reasonable balance options.

Well, I mean,

polling suggests that people are really positive about a wealth tax.

The TUC did some polling, which suggested by a ratio of two to one, voters want a higher rate of tax for the wealthy.

59%

of people believe that the rich don't pay their fair share.

And what about the politicians?

Well, the politicians are really interesting on this.

So

Labour is being very cagey about this at the moment because they're nervous that they're going to look like they're going back to a sort of big 1970s soap the rich vibe, but they haven't ruled it out, which is interesting because they have ruled out other tax rises like income tax and VAT and national insurance contributions on employees.

The Tories won't go near a wealth tax because who's going to fund them?

And Reform have got this idea to allow non-dorms to avoid paying tax on wealth and abroad by paying a one-off fee of about a quarter of a million pounds.

So that's their idea.

And the Greens and those on the left of politics, like Jeremy Corbyn, who's setting up this new party, they are very, very keen on a wealth tax.

But I think the thing for all of us to look out for is that if taxes on ordinary people go up at the budget in the autumn and there isn't some kind of wealth tax on the super rich, you can see that this will be a big, big political headache for the Labour Party, especially when they've just had this big row about cuts to welfare and the winter fuel allowance as well.

So I think that is going to be quite a political headache on the horizon.

Fascinating.

Okay, thank you very much.

Give it up for Aisha Hazarika, everybody.

Okay, well, here's someone who'll never have to pay a wealth tax.

A stand.

I'm in Washington.

The host of KQD's Snap Judgment podcast.

And at Snap, we don't just tell stories, we live them.

Every week a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna, a racetrack in Tijuana, a year inside an open homeless encampment, real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound.

Snap Judgment from KQED, new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast.

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Yes, it's our store of the sidebar, Sunil Patel, everyone.

Sunil.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Right, Catherine, I'm actually disgusted by the amount of billionaire phobia I've heard in this show.

Billionaires are people too, except Scrooge McDuck.

He was a duck.

But even then, billionaires are essential to the functioning of society.

Essential.

Yeah, that's right.

Imagine a world without billionaires, right?

Super yacht manufacturers wouldn't be able to feed their kids.

Plastic surgeons would have to retrain as heart surgeons.

Oh, no.

And hey, no, who's going to make love to that Illuminati owl?

Probably just some guy.

He's gonna have to do that owl.

Wow, you paint a bleak picture, but do you genuinely believe billionaires are forced for good, Sunil?

Yeah, of course.

I mean, look, imagine a world without Amazon, okay?

Um if my grandparents wanted to buy something, they had to walk to a shop like absolute scum, all right?

Me, I don't even have to put my trousers on.

I I just roll out of bed in a sleeping bag like a slug, all right?

So thank you to the absolute legend that is Jeff Bezos.

Long may he reign.

Okay.

But wouldn't it be nice if they paid like a teeny weeny bit more tax?

No, I don't want my billionaires to be nice.

Okay, I want them to be freaks of nature.

Okay, I want them to be playing a golden violin while the world burns.

Okay, that's their job.

It's to star in an apocalyptic reality show for a dying world.

Oh, they already have that.

It's called Ultimatum Queer Love on Netflix.

And it's absolutely carnage, but I've never missed an episode.

My point is, I think if you have money, you have a duty to spend it as selfishly and irresponsibly as possible to give the rest of us a laugh, all right?

Money isn't there to be spent on helping people, it's there to be spent on orbiting various planets while high on ket.

Okay?

Okay, so all billionaires should spend their money on drugs and space.

Not just drugs in space, okay?

They could spend it on injecting their son's blood in a doomed quest to achieve immortality,

a massive, tasteless wedding, or, I don't know, going on the run to Belize while being wanted for questioning about a murder.

Jeff Bezos did that?

No, that was the antivirus billionaire John McCaffey.

He was quite a character.

In July 2017, he also predicted on Twitter that the price of Bitcoin would jump to $500,000 within three years, okay?

Adding, and this is a direct quote: if not, I will eat my own dick on national television.

Yuck, so then where are we going to get our tax money?

Simple.

We're going to tax the boring billionaires, okay?

The ones who are like, oh, I'm going to spend the money on making the world a better place, right?

The, let's be honest, losers, okay?

Look at Mackenzie Bezos.

Apparently, since her divorce, she's given away $19 billion.

Okay, I'm sorry, but what a dork.

Okay, and how would your idea work exactly?

Every billionaire who, by the end of the year, hasn't done something that's become a meme, gets all their property confiscated.

And the money raised by that goes towards paying for Bezos to have another wedding.

Another wedding?

Yeah, he gave the World Next Day delivery, let the guy party.

Okay, anything else you want to say in defense of actual billionaires?

Of course.

I know billionaires get a bad rap, but it's important to remember that not all billionaires are evil CEOs.

Some of them are useless trust funk kids who've never done a day's work in their lives, okay?

So, you know, give them a break.

Okay, and by any chance, do you think you might become a billionaire one day?

Yeah, of course.

That's how it works, isn't it?

We don't tax billionaires so that one day, as if by magic, we all become billionaires.

It's called trickle-down economics, Catherine.

Educate yourself.

Okay.

Wow, my bad.

And how would you spend your billions?

Off the top of my head, 18 monkeys in a hot tub.

Oh, incredibly specific.

Thank you, Seneil Mattel.

That's for not silly business.

We're going to talk to a serious person now.

Are you ready?

This is a complex topic, and perhaps it's because I've never had wealth or paid tax, but I'm still confused.

That was a joke.

Never fear, we have an expert to help me figure it all out and then hopefully do my tax return.

Please welcome Dr.

Emma Chamberlain, everyone.

Welcome, welcome.

Emma is a barrister, a visiting professor of law at Oxford University, a visiting professor of law in practice at LSE Inequalities Unit, and an OBE because I will not talk to a woman today without a title.

I was very clear.

Now, when you're not visiting every university in the land, you were one of the authors of the Wealth Tax Commission's report on a wealth tax.

I guess my first question, and it's probably going to feel like a basic one to you, is: is it workable?

Could a wealth tax in the UK work?

We concluded that you could have an annual wealth tax.

Technically, you could make it work.

We didn't recommend an annual wealth tax.

We said a one-off wealth tax, which is just like you do it once and that's it, is not a bad way of raising quite a lot of money.

Because what?

You surprise the millionaires.

You don't.

Exactly.

You surprise them.

They can't, you have it, you announce it, and it's completely unexpected, and therefore people can't avoid it.

There is a problem with that.

I think now it would be very difficult to say we want a one-off wealth tax when there's no political mandate for it.

Well, okay, would it be more effective then to, instead of adding a wealth tax, to close the loopholes that already exist, to make it so that there are no exemptions?

And is that doable?

We can make our existing, and that was the recommendation actually of the Wealth Tax Commission, is don't have a more complex annual wealth tax.

Instead, just try and improve our existing, not very good, capital taxes.

And so, if you could improve the existing system, which would take a real political will to do that, then the case for an annual wealth tax would fall away.

Switzerland does have an effective annual wealth tax.

They raise, I think, about 8 billion from it, but they don't have inheritance tax and they don't have capital gains tax.

Do you think that possibly there's something to be said for changing how we think about taxes?

Like, is there a way to make it sort of a status symbol to to pay your taxes?

Well, I've always thought, although I'm told there are reasons you can't do that, that people who pay more than a certain amount of tax should get a letter from Downing Street or the Chancellor congratulating them.

Yes, a little medal for the big boys, yeah.

Exactly.

You could even call it like the big boy tax, well done, or the, I don't know, Roman Empire tax, whatever it is the rich men need to pay the tax.

Is the flight risk of the millionaires who are here all as cracked up to be?

It seems like it's overblown by politicians.

Is it real?

It's too early to say.

We've had a lot of changes on what you were calling foreign dons, so people who come from another country and live here.

And

we still don't know because it was only introduced from 25, April 25.

So it's too early to say exactly how many people have left.

I think there's no doubt that more people have left as a result of those changes.

Whether it's 25%,

10%,

it will partly depend on your age and what you're doing.

If you're working here with a young family, you're probably not going to leave.

You'll just put up with it.

If you're in your 50s and 60s, you might think, well, yeah, I can leave now.

So it really does depend on the profile of the person.

I think the biggest thing in favour of a wealth tax, which is why people, I suspect in this room, are in favour of it, because they have a sense of fairness and that wealth inequality is increasing.

And I think that is quite difficult to deal with.

I don't think a wealth tax is a solution to that.

Not an annual wealth tax, anyway.

The vibe of the room is solid points well made, but come on,

and I hear you.

Okay.

We've asked our audience to suggest a stealth tax they could put on the wealthy.

We want to hear your best alternatives to a levy on red trousers or brown shoes or parello olives.

Oh no, I eat parello olives.

I'm going to read out some of the things you think should be taxed to get money from the rich.

300% tax on chai lattes.

400% if they order it extra hot.

Oh, I do that.

That's not that.

You do that, Emma!

Come on!

A tax on the name Hugo?

Solid.

Attacks on dogs that fit in your handbag?

I don't disagree.

Attacks on super silly dog breeds like a bernadoodle, a pomsky, or a schnoodle.

Cockapoos are okay, says the owner of a cockapoo.

Interesting.

Funding state music schools from a 10% levy on all those who glamp at festivals for the price of a normal family holiday.

I support that.

I like that direct, direct line.

Amazing.

Okay, does anyone have a question for Emma while we're here?

I'm James.

Hi, James.

You said there's not the political will for an efficient tax system.

What creates that?

Because I just get the impression we all want the tax system that works.

Oh, politicians have to take brave decisions.

And the problem is that having a system that works better requires them to have some fallout to tackle vested interests, and that's quite difficult.

And you know, you've only got a short time, and what can you get through in four years?

That's partly why I don't think this government would introduce a wealth tax because it actually takes about four years to set up an annual wealth tax, the administrative machinery.

By the time they did that, it would be the next government, and then they would dismantle it.

Heartening.

Okay, hello, what's your name?

Hi, I'm Sarah.

Hi, Sarah.

What's your question?

This is maybe more general tax than the wealth tax specifically, but with the cost of living going up, do you predict that the tax brackets, like what normal people earn that have a normal salary, will change to adjust to the fact that people might need to earn more to pay more for their food and

rent.

Yeah, I think the government will freeze the thresholds personally, and they'll sort of do us a tax by the back door.

That's what I mean about complicating the tax system and not being honest with people.

It is very difficult.

There are other ways they could raise money, but it will take some political courage.

So we just have to hope for some political courage

and pigs to fly.

No, it might happen, but it probably won't.

Folks, please give it up for the incredibly yeah, a little bit depressing, but wonderful Emma James!

Thank you so much.

Just out of interest, what do, if we weren't talking about 10 million, what do people generally regard as wealthy?

Would you say over 500,000 a year?

Over 100?

Some people saying no to that, over 150?

Sort of a weird auction that none of us win.

I thought it was like having a swimming pool.

I think that's just what I would have.

If you got a swimming pool, that's the benchmark, basically.

Really?

Yeah.

Unfortunately, mine's the same as my mother's being able to do your whole shop in Marks and Spencer's.

So, Aisha, at the end of the story, what have we learned?

I think what's really difficult about this is even though something feels instinctively like it would be a really, really good idea and it's the sort of moral thing to do and the fair fair thing to do.

It doesn't mean that rich people can't wriggle out of it, you know.

I do feel like they're sort of perpetually covered in financial Vaseline.

Okay, do you have a hero of the week for this story?

Well, I have to sort of disagree with Sunil from earlier because I think women like Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott are to be applauded because they are, yeah,

I love these women, they're sort of the billionaire's first wives club, aren't they?

They're sort of like out there doing philanthropy, and they're just a gang of gorgeous women redistributing the wealth of their horrific first husbands.

And none of them, not one of them, are going into space in a slightly too snug jumpsuit.

Solid point.

Okay, well, thank you so much, Aisha.

Thank you, everyone.

This has been Too Long Didn't Read, the show that's fun and newsy, like an aunt at a wedding with two divorces under her belt and nothing to lose.

Too Long Didn't Read was written and hosted by Catherine Bohart with Baroness Aisha Hazarika, Sunil Patel and Dr.

Emma Chamberlain.

It was also written by Madeline Brettingham, Tom Neenan and Prabania Pillay.

The producer was Alison Vernon Smith.

It was a Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4.

Hello, I'm Brian Cox.

I'm Robin Inks and we're back for a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.

We have our 201st extravaganza where we're going to talk about how animals emote when around trains and tunnels or something like that.

I'm not entirely sure.

We're doing one on potatoes.

Of course, we're doing one on potatoes.

You love potatoes.

I know, but.

Yeah, you love chips.

I'll only enjoy it if it's got curry sauce on it.

We've also got techno-fossils, moths versus butterflies, and a history of light.

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X-Boom.