Suggestion from think tank
Super-rich should pay minimum tax on wealth
October 23, 2023, 11:42 a.m
Billionaires around the world often use shell companies in tax havens – and, according to a report, effectively pay just 0.5 percent taxes on their assets. According to a think tank, this income is essential for our society. She is therefore calling for a minimum tax for the super-rich.
According to a report, billionaires in Europe and elsewhere actually pay very little to no taxes – the EU Tax Observatory think tank is therefore proposing a flat minimum tax of two percent on the assets of all billionaires in Europe. That would bring in 40 billion euros annually, according to the published report by the think tank specializing in tax avoidance. Worldwide it would be more than 200 billion euros.
According to the report, the world’s billionaires effectively pay zero to 0.5 percent taxes on their assets – for example because they often use shell companies in tax havens. There are around 2,800 billionaires in Europe. According to the report, they only pay around six billion euros in taxes every year. This sum could rise to 40 billion euros with the proposed minimum taxation.
This income is “indispensable for our societies,” says the foreword to the report by US economist Joseph Stiglitz. The government must currently “agree on essential investments in education, health, infrastructure and technologies”. The report praises the automatic exchange of account data that countries around the world have agreed to and which has been in force since 2017. Before 2013, “the majority” of the wealthy’s money was hidden untaxed in tax havens – now, ten years later, it is only 25 percent, they say.
The director of the EU Tax Observatory is the French economist Gabriel Zucman. More and more rich people are now more honest when it comes to taxes – but this didn’t happen voluntarily, Zucman told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “They were forced.” The success of the automatic exchange of account data shows that “tax evasion is not a law of nature”. The US crackdown on Switzerland brought about the breakthrough in tax haven accounts. This led to a major international agreement.