“Cheeky” inequality: 1% of the richest in 10 years increased their wealth by 42 trillion dollars
The world’s richest one percent have increased their wealth by more than $42 trillion over the past decade, Oxfam has revealed.
The Nairobi-based international non-governmental organization (NGO) presented the data ahead of the G-20 summit in Brazil, where taxing the super-rich is high on the agenda.
Despite this windfall, taxes on the wealthy have fallen to “historic lows”, the NGO added, warning of “obscene levels” of inequality with the rest of the world “left for scraps”.
Brazil has made international cooperation in taxing the super-rich a priority of its presidency of the G-20, a group of countries that represent 80 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
At this week’s summit in Rio, the group’s finance ministers are expected to make progress on ways to increase levies on the ultra-rich and prevent billionaires from avoiding tax systems.
The initiative includes determining methodologies for taxing billionaires and other high-income earners.
A tax of at least 8 percent on “extreme wealth”
The proposal is due to be hotly debated at a summit on Thursday and Friday, with France, Spain, South Africa, Colombia and the African Union in favor but the United States strongly opposed.
Oxfam called it “a real litmus test for G-20 governments”, urging them to impose an annual tax of at least 8 percent on the “extreme wealth” of the super-rich.
“The momentum to raise taxes on the super-rich is undeniable,” said Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam International.
If you have $4,210, you are richer than 50 percent of the people in the world
“Do they have the political will to establish a global standard that puts the needs of the majority before the greed of an elite few?”
Oxfam said the $42 trillion figure was nearly 36 times the wealth accumulated by the poorer half of the world’s population.
Despite this, billionaires “pay tax at a rate equivalent to less than 0.5 percent of their wealth” worldwide, the NGO said.
Source: Klix
Photo: Pexels
Source: bizlife.rs
