If levied, the sum would be equivalent to only 2% of the nearly $13 trillion in wealth owned by the 2,700 billionaires globally, the research group hosted at the Paris School of Economics said.
Currently billionaires’ effective personal tax is often far less than what other taxpayers of more modest means pay because they can park wealth in shell companies sheltering them from income tax, the group said in its 2024 Global Tax Evasion Report.
“In our view, this is difficult to justify because it risks to undermine the sustainability of tax systems and the social acceptability of taxation,” the observatory’s director Gabriel Zucman told journalists.
Billionaires’ personal tax in the United States is estimated to be close to 0.5% and as low as zero in otherwise high-tax France, the Observatory estimated.
who would have thought that taxing the richest money hoarders would actually bring money back into the economy?
A proper billionaire tax would be to tax them until they are no longer billionaires
You’ve reached $999 999 999 in wealth! Congratulations you win the hoarding game.
To play again, just donate everything equally to the poorest 1 000 000 in your country.
Just think of all the fun you had in your first game, why not give it a second try?
For those who want a deeper dive into the tax evasion problem (albeit mainly focused on the US), I recommend The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
Imagine if we didn’t have any more billionaires, how many trillions of dollars we could spend on us normals.
It’s much too late once that money has been accumulated in one place.
Ayyyy an actual reputable article that shows the approximate proper amount of total wealth owned by billionaires currently.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget included plans for a 25% minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01%, but that proposal has since fallen by the wayside with lawmakers in Washington preoccupied with government shutdown threats and looming funding deadlines.
If billionaires were taxed according. How would that help/hurt society in the next 100 years or so.
For example would many of today’s problems not be a problem if this has been happening all along?
Legitimate question here.
Depends who is spending it
That’s… a tiny sum. It wouldn’t even cover the current deficit which is 1.685 trillion
It wouldn’t even go towards servicing the debt, just making it grow slower
That enough to give Ukraine for a whole three months!
the taxed amount will be passed to everyone else
