A Practical Prescription for Taxing Our World's Richest

JULY 2, 2024

BY SAM PIZZIGATI



Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Ever wonder why the divide between the world’s richest and everybody else keeps getting wider? Gabriel Zucman, one of the world’s finest young economists, has just produced a report that riffs on one key reason: Our super rich pay next to nothing in taxes.

Just how close to nothing? This close: Over the past four decades, the world’s “ultra-high-net-worth individuals” have seen their fortunes increase, after taking inflation into account, an average 7.5 percent per year. How much annually have these rich paid in taxes? They’ve been paying, Zucman calculates, an effective tax rate “equivalent to 0.3% of their wealth.”

Other analysts have over recent years been sharing variations on that same basic story. But none of those analysts have ever had the opportunity to share that story on a grander stage than Zucman, the founding director of the EU Tax Observatory and an economist based at the University of California Berkeley.

Zucman prepared his landmark new report at the express request of Brazil, the nation that currently holds the presidency of the G20, the global grouping of the world’s most powerful economic nations. The world’s super rich, Brazil’s current leadership believes, are nowhere near paying their fair tax share.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/02/a-practical-prescription-for-taxing-our-worlds-richest/