How to communicate economics to a non-economist audience?

tl;dr – How does a successful economist communicate economic ideas to a non economist audience that is resistant to reform, despite how they may benefit.

The recent discussions in the UK about reforming property taxes have had a lot of push back. For context, council taxes are based on the 1991 property valuation (backdated for properties built since then), and are set up in bands which top out in the highest bands – i.e., a house worth £10m and another worth £1m would be liable for the same amount of tax. On top of this, councils set their own rates. The result is that the richest households in the richest areas pay tiny effective rates compared to the poorest households in the poorest areas, with significant regional distortions given the changes in property prices since 1991. There is no denying that there is significant scope for reform.

In particular, I was reading this article in the FT by John Muellbauer (Prof of Econ at Oxford), which advocates for replacing the top two bands with an annual tax of 0.5% of its assessed value (this is broadly similar to how property taxes work in the US). Given this is only the top two bands, its relatively light touch and goes a long way to making the system more progressive. The comments however, seemed outraged. In the face of a broken and regressive system, many would rather stick with the status quo rather than embrace needed reform, despite how they may directly/in-directly benefit from these changes. The sample of people who have FT accounts and also the time to comment is likely to be pretty biased to those who benefit from the status quo, but as many of the commentors missed the point, it got me thinking…

How does a successful economist 'sell' ideas that have an economic backing to non-economists,? In an individual sense, how have you effectively communicated ideas, concepts or goals to your parents, peers and friends etc? There is always room for debate between schools of thought for and against such reform, but the first step will always be effective communication.

I would welcome any and all thoughts or experience on this, thanks! 🙂