Award-winning author challenges MPs over lack of wealth tax

BEST-SELLING AUTHOR Mark Haddon has written to his MP arguing he and other well-off people should pay more in tax in order to prevent others suffering due to austerity measures.

Haddon claimed he was “not just asking an economic question, but a moral one, too”, and said he had irritated his accountant when he had insisted on paying all tax due, rather than looking to mitigate his liability, reports the Guardian.

The letter was partly inspired by the US entrepreneur’s declaration that both he and the rest of America’s super-rich should contribute more taxes, said Haddon.

It read: “I should be paying more tax … There seem to be more Bob Diamonds [the former chief executive of Barclays who quit over the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal] than Warren Buffetts.

“I’m a wealthy person. Austerity measures introduced by the coalition have caused real suffering to many people, but my comfortable life hasn’t changed in the slightest. Why have I, and people like me, been asked to contribute nothing?”

He has also accused the government of being a “cabal of very wealthy people” removed from normal life, and cited his own boarding school education and time at Oxford University as evidence for “how easy it is for certain groups of people to become wholly insulated from ordinary life”.

Haddon is best known for the award-winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which sold more than 2m copies. It has been adapted for the stage, and a big-screen version starring Brad Pitt is currently in production.