A NEW wealth tax could raise more than £218 billion over five years, stopping cuts to vital public services, research by Labour MP Jon Trickett revealed today.

The former frontbencher has proposed a radical overhaul of the tax system in his new report The Nature of Wealth in Britain: How Wealth Wields Power and the Case for a Wealth Tax.

In the report, the Hemsworth MP highlights four different options for a wealth tax, including a one-off payment, an annual tax and a hybrid targeting increases in wealth.

The report also found that bringing taxes on dividends and capital gains into line with income tax would raise a further £127bn in revenue over a five year period.

Closing tax avoidance loopholes and tackling tax evasion would raise a total of £145.5bn, it added.

If all the proposed changes were to be implemented, approximately £490.9bn in additional tax revenue could be raised in five years.

The report comes ahead of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Autumn Statement, which is expected to propose cuts to public services after he asked departments to find at least 5 per cent of savings and efficiencies from their day-to-day budgets.

Launching the report, Mr Trickett said: “A wealth tax would transform our public finances, making money available for our neglected public services.

“We could afford to plug the social care funding gap and give our key workers a pay rise. We could reverse local government and education cuts. We could rebuild Britain.”

He said that the tax was also necessary to address “extreme wealth inequality” in Britain, adding: “Our political system is rigged in favour of global corporations and the super-rich.

“Wealth is turned into political power through donations and lobbying. Political power is used to advance policies that financially benefit the elite at everyone else’s expense.

“It is a cycle of inequality that leads towards oligarchy and threatens our democracy.

“Bringing taxes on wealth into line with those on income is both morally as well as fiscally correct.

“But it is also a bold policy which will appeal to both voters and the labour movement precisely because it has one of our core values, fairness, at its centre.”