‘Quiet luxury’ land tax on the wealthy could fund levelling up

It reinforced the reputation of the Cotswolds as England’s version of the Hamptons – a playground for growing numbers of rich folk. As the NYT noted, it is a similar distance from the metropolis, and similarly dotted with second homes, upmarket shops and restaurants, and private members’ clubs.

There may be an opportunity here for Rachel Reeves as she looks for ways to repair the damage done by her non-dom tax changes and fears of a wealth tax in general. Bashing the rich offers helpful optics for a Labour chancellor who is also cutting benefits for poorer people, but losing the internationally mobile rich to other countries is thought to be bad for economic growth, given their impact on spending and job creation.

So why not scrap the extension of inheritance tax to non-doms – the part of Reeves’s reform that has scared so many super rich into fleeing to Milan, Dubai and so on – and replace it with a targeted “Cotswold Wealth Tax”? This could be a land tax on all properties valued at “quiet luxury” levels within an area carefully gerrymandered to maximise politically useful celebrity-rich outrage, spanning the Ellen De Generes and Beckham estates, Estelle Manor (the exclusive country clubhouse where the Jobs wedding took place) and Jeremy Clarkson’s farm. Other wealthy enclaves across the country could get their own land tax too, while new local tax breaks could be used to attract the super rich to parts of Britain more in need of their economic stimulus.

Photograph by Ben Birchall/PA Wire