Pressure is mounting on billionaires around the world to pay more tax.
Last week government ministers in four of the biggest countries in the world proposed a 2% minimum tax on the ballooning wealth of billionaires.
The ministers of Germany, Brazil, Spain and South Africa said by doing this $250 billion could be raised every year to fight growing poverty and inequality. They are calling on other countries to join their campaign.
Growing wealth gap
Their intervention shows there’s a growing international appetite for wealth taxes on the super rich.
It’s easy to see why. During Covid, the world’s ten richest men saw their fortunes double.
The world’s 3,000 billionaires now hold combined wealth of £11 trillion, while hundreds of millions of people live in extreme poverty.
The gap is widening too. In the last twenty years the income gap between the top 10% and the bottom 50% has nearly doubled.
The rich want to pay more tax
Wealth taxes are popular among a growing number of super rich individuals – they recognise how unsustainable the situation is socially, economically and ecologically.
Patriotic Millionaires represents many of these rich individuals. They advocate for wealth taxes.
Abigail Disney, a member of the group and heiress to the Walt Disney fortune, wrote in The Guardian last week that:
“It is only right that the funds to mitigate further damage [to the planet] and develop green energy systems come from those most able to pay – and who, by the way, are the ones disproportionately driving it with their jet-setting, gas-guzzling lifestyles.”
Patriotic Millionaires took to the streets of Washington DC last week and projected their wealth tax message onto public buildings.
We’ve won before
Concerted global action against the ballooning wealth of billionaires may feel difficult – but the tax justice movement won a similar battle not long ago.
Three years ago 136 countries agreed a minimum global corporation tax rate of 15%.
Although not perfect – less well-off countries got a poor deal, and the 15% rate is far too low – this agreement does show that joined up action to tackle abuse is possible.
It’s helping to stop big corporations jumping from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to avoid tax.
The same can be done with billionaires. If enough countries pass similar wealth tax legislation, the world’s billionaires will have nowhere to shelter their wealth.