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Nick Clegg demands emergency tax on Britain’s richest people

30 August 2012 07:54 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called on Wednesday for an emergency tax on Britain’s wealthiest people while the country fights an "economic war".

"If we are going to ask people for more sacrifices over a longer period of time, a longer period of belt tightening as a country, then we just have to make sure that people see it is being done as fairly and as progressively as possible," Clegg said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.

Liberal Democrat leader Clegg said he is embarking on a battle to persuade his Conservative Party coalition partners of the need to ensure that the rich shoulder a greater burden of the economic pain.
"If we want to remain cohesive and prosperous as a society, people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution."

But during a visit to Sunderland, Chancellor George Osborne registered his opposition to the idea.

’I am clear that the wealthy should pay more which is why in the recent budget I increased the tax on very expensive property transactions,’ he said.

’But we also have to be careful as a country we don’t drive away the wealth creators and the businesses that are going to lead our economic recovery.’

It is very interesting that, since 1970, economy of Great Britain is going down two years in succession. GDP of the country dropped 0.35 in Q1 and 0.75 in Q2.