t is tough to comprehend the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic: the loss to world output this year is forecast by the IMF to be some £2.8tn – more than the size of the entire UK economy. Britain is among the countries that have fared the worst, with a fall in GDP of around 10%. It is the deepest recession in the post-war era, far greater than the 2008 financial crisis where the economy shrank by more than 6%. Unemployment is on the rise, particularly for young people. Yet while many have suffered, some have prospered. With the nation under its second lockdown of the year, the biggest beneficiaries have been big tech firms such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google – all of which have seen their profits soar and valuations reach new heights. The pandemic has accelerated the disruption caused by what some term the fourth industrial revolution. It is only right to tax the winners. The shutdown of large swathes of economic activity in response to the pandemic is the definition of an uninsurable risk, something that could never be managed or mitigated by responsible firms, even those with strong balance sheets. Even if all firms had the foresight to purchase pandemic insurance, as the Wimbledon tennis club did, the scale of the losses would almost certainly have pushed the major insurers into insolvency, requiring the government to step in. That’s why it is undeniably right for government to step in and support businesses and workers – and foolish to try to withdraw state support before the pandemic has been brought under control. There is no moral hazard involved in helping businesses in a pandemic. The package of economic support brought in by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has been unprecedented in its scope and scale, even if his repeated bungling – attempting to roll back the furlough scheme before extending it – has needlessly created uncertainty and almost certainly cost jobs. But just as it is right to support those who have faced losses from the pandemic, it is also right to tax the unearned gains of those who have benefited from it. Big tech has been rewarded by circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Just as Labour imposed a windfall tax on the privatised utilities in the 1990s, so there should be a windfall tax on big tech in the 2020s. This could be accomplished through a special levy – calculated as a percentage of UK sales – for the decade ahead. The exchequer will need the money. With a collapse in tax receipts and an explosion in costs – from the furlough scheme to extra spending for the NHS and billions wasted on test and trace – government borrowing has soared. Compared to the previous year, tax receipts were down by more than 20% while spending was up by more than 45%. The result is that the government has borrowed £246bn, pushing the national debt to its highest level since 1960. With interest rates at historic lows and on long repayment timescales, the huge increase in government debt is sustainable. Once the pandemic has been brought under control and the economy has recovered, it will be necessary to close the deficit in day-to-day spending. That will require broad-based tax rises, not simply a windfall tax on big tech. That’s why it’s time for a simple but radical and fair reform to tax: tax all income in the same way, whether it comes from wealth or from work. It goes against basic fairness that tax rates on income from share dividends or capital gains are much lower than those from employment. A large share of the costs of coronavirus could be covered: abolishing capital gains and share dividend tax and instead putting all income on the income tax schedule would net around £90bn for the exchequer in five years. It would greatly simplify the tax system and it is almost impossible to argue that those who work hard for their income should be taxed more highly than those who do not. We will be paying for the costs of coronavirus for decades to come. We may all be living through the pandemic at the same time, but our experiences are very different. It makes more sense to tax businesses that have enjoyed windfall gains and those that are wealthy, not just because that is where the money is, but because those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden. That has rarely been more true than it is now. • Tom Kibasi is a writer and researcher on politics and economics