Sir Tony Atkinson, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that the government should consider introducing a minimum inheritance system as the best way of tackling income and wealth inequality.
“There should be a minimum inheritance for everyone,” Atkinson said.
“We should turn an inheritance tax into a tax on what you receive,” Atkinson said in an interview. “The revenue from that could be used to provide a minimum level of wealth for people.”
Atkinson said that the debate about the role of government intervention in tackling income and wealth inequality has been coloured by ideological factors. He said he was a practical person and believed the government was better than anyone else at raising taxes and distributing the proceeds.
Atkinson said that too much attention is being paid to government income, expenditure and debt.
“So far, what we have seen is a focus on national debt rather than the whole asset base of the government,” Atkinson said. During the decades after the (second world) war we built up the state’s net worth. This has fallen since 1979 to situation where there is no net worth.”
Atkinson is widely seen as Britain’s most respected authority on income inequality and poverty.