Calls for ‘wealth tax’ in Rachel Reeves’ autumn budget 2025

The Chancellor is widely expected to raise taxes on November 26 in order to fill a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans, but is reported to have ruled out a manifesto-busting income tax hike.

Campaigners, millionaires, and public sector workers have today handed in over 575,000 petition signatures to the Treasury calling on the government to tax the super rich. This comes one week ahead of the Government’s Autumn Budget. The organisations involved are demanding the government fix public services, tackle inequality and invest in tackling climate change and restoring nature.

Patriotic Millionaires, including Economist and YouTuber Gary Stevenson, alongside a caricature of Chancellor Rachel Reeves handed a giant cheque of “tens of billions” from the super rich to public sector workers from the NHS and Fire & Rescue Service.

Laura Ho, NHS Midwife said: “It’s really hard going into work each day watching our NHS bursting at the seams, with constant cut backs and burnt out staff, knowing that there are people sitting on mega-yachts with hundreds of empty properties and billions in the bank. That doesn’t seem right to me. When did we decide that some people can have extreme luxury while the majority struggle?”

Organisations including Tax Justice UK, 38 Degrees and Oxfam GB, along with climate groups Greenpeace, 350, and Green New Deal Rising, and the Fire Brigades Union are advocating the Government reform the tax system. They say that doing so can raise tens of billions every year by implementing a number of changes that tax extreme wealth. The organisations argue that by taxing what they term ‘the super-rich’, the government will have revenue to invest in public services like – hospitals, schools, housing, childcare and infrastructure – as well as to act on the climate crisis at home and abroad.

Steve Wright, Fire Brigades Union general secretary said: “The fire and rescue service is on its knees after fifteen years of austerity. Meanwhile, firefighters are being pushed beyond limits responding to increasing floods and wildfires across the UK. We desperately need more resources to keep communities safe from the impacts of the climate crisis. The money is there: the government must tax the super-rich to fund vital services like fire and rescue.”

Proposals to tax the super rich include introducing a 2% wealth tax on wealth over £10 million, which would raise £24 billion a year and apply to just 0.04% of the population. Reforming capital gains tax to tax income from wealth the same as income from work to raise over £11 billion a year, and applying national insurance to investment income to raise £12 billion a year.

Matthew McGregor, CEO at 38 Degrees, said: “The message to the Chancellor from hundreds of thousands of members of the public is crystal clear: Make those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share, and tax the ultra-rich to save our public services. It is outrageous that whilst so many people are struggling to get by, a tiny number are sitting on billions, paying less tax on their wealth than ordinary people pay on their wages. Fairness isn’t a luxury; it’s a foundation. The government must listen to the people, fix this rigged system, and use that revenue to mend our NHS, fund our schools, and help all of us with the cost of living a little.”

Ending fossil fuel subsidies for big oil and gas companies, as well as increasing taxes on private jets, would also deliver over £3 billion to the Treasury.

Hannah Martin, Co-Director of youth climate campaign group Green New Deal Rising, said: “Young people today face a raging climate crisis, rising unemployment and extortionate rent and bill costs. All they’ve known is crisis, underinvestment and decline. At the same time, the wealth of the super-rich has exploded, with billionaires adding £35 million to their wealth every day last year alone. Instead of asking these ultra-rich multi-millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share, our current tax system gives them a free ride, massively undertaxing wealth compared to income. This Budget, it’s time to change that. It’s time for Reeves to make the super-rich PAY UP with fair wealth taxes to fund investment in climate action, affordable homes and good, green jobs.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said Ms Reeves’ statement “must be a cost-of-living Budget to slash people’s bills and make our country affordable again”.

In a letter to the Chancellor, Mr Polanski and other leading Greens called for a wealth tax along with changes to capital gains tax to bring it in line with income tax.

They also called for wide-ranging measures to cut energy bills, control rents and abolish the two-child benefit cap.

Mr Polanski said: “Our message to Rachel Reeves is simple: cut bills, tax billionaires.”

The Greens have proposed a 1% tax on wealth above £10 million, rising to 2% on wealth of more than £1 billion, claiming this will raise £14.8 billion a year.

But experts at Tax Policy Associates have argued such a tax would be “high-risk” and could raise much less while causing significant damage to growth.

Calls for a wealth tax have also been backed by campaign groups including Greenpeace, Oxfam and Tax Justice UK, who will present the Chancellor with a petition backing the levy signed by 575,000 people on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, think tank IPPR said the Chancellor needed to “pick the right fights” at the Budget by taxing people with “unfair advantages and profits” before raising money from “working households”.

The think tank, which has been influential in Labour policy-making, said the Chancellor should reform property taxes, raising council tax on the most valuable homes, and close “loopholes” in capital gains tax that “allow income from wealth to be taxed more lightly than earnings from work”.

Ms Reeves is reported to have told a group of loyalist MPs that she plans to raise taxes on the wealthiest, including through changes to property levies.

The Chancellor suggested to MPs during a reception in Number 11 on Monday that she could increase taxes on the most valuable properties in the country, according to the i Paper.

IPPR also called for national insurance to be levied on landlords and a reform of gambling taxes, before even considering broader measures such as extending the freeze on income tax thresholds.

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Carsten Jung, executive director at IPPR, said the Chancellor should “launch ‘a war on bills’ – a relentless campaign to lower the cost of living, picking fights on behalf of working people”.

He said: “This should start with energy, food and council tax. Together with repairing public services, this Budget can be living proof that the Government is on people’s side.”

Earlier in November, the Chancellor said she was “a progressive” who believed “those with the broadest shoulders should pay the most”.