More than 100 millionaires make an extraordinary plea: ‘Our taxes are now’

More than 100 millionaires made an extraordinary plea on Wednesday: “Our taxes are now.”

Their plea came as a study, backed by wealthy individuals and nonprofits, that found that a wealth tax on the world’s richest could generate $2.52 trillion a year — enough to pay for Covid vaccines for everyone and 2.3 billion people. out of poverty.

In an open letter to the World Economic Forum’s online meeting in Davos, 102 millionaires, including Disney heiress Abigail Disney, said the current tax system was unfair and “deliberately designed to make the wealthy even richer.”

“The world – every country in it – must demand that the rich pay their fair share,” the letter says. “Tax us the rich and tax us now.”

Their appeal follows a report this week by global charity Oxfam that said the world’s 10 richest men doubled their fortunes to $1.5 trillion in the first two years of the pandemic, with rising inequality and poverty.

“As millionaires, we know the current tax system is not fair,” said the letter, which was distributed by groups such as National Millionaires, Millionaires for Humanity, Tax Me Now and Oxfam.

“Most of us can say that while the world has suffered tremendously in the past two years, we have actually seen our wealth increase during the pandemic — but few of us can honestly say we pay our fair share of taxes.”

The signatories include wealthy men and women from the United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Austria, the Netherlands and Iran.

National millionaires have engaged in wealth tax research with a network of nonprofit and social movements, including the Fight Against Inequality Alliance, Oxfam, and the US-based Institute for Policy Studies.

In addition to funding vaccines worldwide and alleviating poverty, the tax would be enough to provide universal health care and social protection for 3.6 billion people in low- and middle-income countries, the group said.

The tax is set at 2% for companies worth more than $5 million, three percent for more than $50 million, and five percent for more than $1 billion.

‘realistic’ tax

The group said the steeper progressive tax, which includes a 10 percent tax on billionaires, would generate $3.62 trillion annually. Actual tax levels are country specific.

Jenny Rex, global advocate for the Coalition Against Inequality, told AFP that the group had opted for a lower progressive tax on the “realistic side”.

Democrats came up with a plan last year to tax the fortunes of nearly 700 US billionaires in Congress, but it was left out of President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion program of social spending and climate change.

The tax proposal was presented on Wednesday as world governments and business leaders attended this week’s virtual Davos meeting. Personal assembly was delayed due to diffusion of the Omicron variant.

“There is no defense for a system that infinitely increases the fortunes of the world’s richest people and owes billions to easily preventable poverty,” Maurice Pearl, president of National Millionaires, and former director of investment firm BlackRock, said in a statement.

“We need deep, systemic change, and that starts with taxing rich people like me,” Morris said.