Agencies
Anti-poverty campaigners have hailed a decision by G20 leaders meeting in Rio to make sure the world’s billionaires "are effectively taxed.”
Getting the super-rich to cough up more in taxes has been a priority of left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is hosting the summit of the world’s biggest economies.
Lula, a former metalworker who grew up in poverty, complains that the super-rich pay proportionately much less tax than the working class.
A 2021 White House study showed that the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the US paid an average federal individual tax rate of 8.2 percent, compared to 13 percent for the average taxpayer.
According to anti-poverty NGO Oxfam, the richest 1 percent have accumulated $42 trillion in new wealth over the past decade It says the richest one percent have more wealth than the lowest 95 percent combined. Increasing taxes on the wealthiest is also seen as a way to boost state coffers at a time of ballooning budget deficits and as developing countries seek huge amounts of funding to help them weather global warming.
"Tax the rich” has for years been a battle cry of the global left, while a group of US self-described Patriotic Millionaires have themselves called for higher tax bills.
In Rio, activists projected giant slides on buildings during the G20 summit marked "Tax the super rich for people and planet.”
French economist Gabriel Zucman, an expert on inequality who authored a report on the issue for Brazil’s G20 presidency, estimated that if the planet’s 3,000 billionaires paid at least 2 percent of their wealth in income tax each year, governments would rake in an extra $250 billion in revenue.
Proposals for a minimum global income tax pushed by Brazil, Colombia, France, South Africa, Spain and the African Union have come to naught with the US and Germany among the naysayers.