Wealthy people opt out of some public services

The argument

A sizeable portion of wealthy people do not use the public services they fund. They educate their children privately, obtain healthcare privately, and travel by private means rather than on public transport. The effect of this is not neutral: every wealthy family outside the state system is a family whose place in a school, whose appointment at a hospital and whose seat on a train is left for somebody else. In systems that are already stretched, that relief is a genuine contribution, and it is additional to the money. The financial point sits alongside it. These households continue to pay for the services they have opted out of, and most do so without objection — the principle that a society maintains public provision for those who rely on it is one they accept, and they remain happy to make a reasonable contribution towards its maintenance. What they are funding is other people's use rather than their own, which is already a departure from how most people experience taxation. The objection is to what is proposed on top of that. Asking this group for more means asking people who use less to pay more for services they will not touch, while drawing on none of the capacity they are funding. Proponents of this position describe that expectation as presumptuous: it treats an existing willingness to contribute as evidence that more can simply be asked for, and it leaves those being asked with no corresponding claim on anything. The conclusion is that the present balance is already defensible. The wealthy pay for public services, use less of them than they pay for, and in doing so relieve pressure on the systems other people depend on. Having done that, they should not have to pay more tax.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Under the current capitalist economic model the richer you are the more societal and material benefits you receive. This includes attaining a higher standard of public services delivered in part by the private sector. This minority do economically better out of the current economic model and can therefore afford to pay a higher rate in taxation to fund public services for the majority. Wealthy individuals also derive the bulk of their income from fixed assets. Society and the economy are set up in a way that benefits the asset rich, while punishing those who are asset poor. The tax system reflects this bias, ensuring a lower rate of tax on dividends and shares compared to income earned through employment.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] This does not outweigh the benefits the wealthy receive from society.