It’s three weeks till the budget and this one’s causing a lot of concern in the Financial Times

Jonathan Guthrie knows exactly what he’s doing winding up what Rachel Reeves is calling those with the “broadest shoulders”. Jonathan knows that the wealthy read the FT to find out if they are and if they’re likely to stay that way

Of course most people don’t read the FT and most especially those who have less than £300,00o in pensions , property and other bits and pieces. Jonathan can tease those who have got wealth but the question is how wealthy is wealthy to Rachel and Torsten.

The general feeling is that everyone will have to bear the pain, a kind of democratic pain so long as you have income (a good budget if you live on benefits.

Some close to the decision-making process said Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer were still weighing up whether a series of smaller tax rises could be deployed instead to fill the fiscal void.

Elsewhere, smaller tax raises are being argued as the Torsten Bell solution, he having a Swedish name, this is known as the smorgasbord solution and involves having a go at wealth as well as or instead of income. So where is the wealth?

The readers of articles about wealth in the FT skip the bits about what is poverty, they want to know where they sit in the tables, here is a table that matters

and boy does it matter. The higher the decile, the more you worth and in a world of increasing reliance on material values , this is about as good a value on how you’re dong and have done as any.

What you leave is important, that is why the furore that is happening about next year’s introduction of inheritance tax on pension wealth is so important to the wealthy. It is also why it is important to those who are not wealthy in terms of HMRC’s IHT estimates but aspirant to be.

Jonathan Guthrie has some alternative measures to determine wealth.

Numbers are not the only wealth tests. I reckon you qualify if the following apply:

• You possess more promotional golfing umbrellas printed with the names of fee-hungry asset managers than any one person could legitimately need.
• The corkscrew “that actually works” always seems to be in a different property to the one you currently occupy.
• Gardening does not involve callused hands and muddy boots. It means pointing at a field and telling men with diggers: “I want the lake there.”

Undoubtedly these are in the front of Jonathan’s head due to recent experience but the point is well made, most of the wealthy have their own measures of how they know they are.

The worry over the next three weeks will be for the people who fancy themselves above median wealthy (and maybe some who may fall below some Treasury estimate of “well-off”) , will be hit especially by the smorgasbord of taxes that Torsten Bell invented when at the Resolution Foundation and is now considering when advising Rachel Reeve.

This has led to a run on tax free cash which has now been withdrawn at the last estimate by £18bn from pension pots. There are talks of people using offshore bonds in the Isle of Man and I hear of more extravagant means to avoid the wealth taxes imagined.

Maybe the best bet is to have some gentle humour and share with Jonathan. If you want to make yourself happy, or feel average or condemn yourself to being poor – IN TERMS OF INCOME, measure yourself here. There is no better way to measure your value to HMRC, I’m putting my bets on my income reducing, but I’ve got a pension to fall back on. Oops – does that give me broad shoulders too?