The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) and the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) will host a high-level event titled
In this world nothing is certain except death and taxes, Benjamin Franklin famously said. Billionaires may not yet have achieved immortality, but they have certainly become more agile at avoiding the tax collector. Over the last decades, globalization has opened new tax avoidance possibilities exploited by wealthy individuals around the world – and for too long, this has been accepted as an inevitable byproduct.
In the 1960s, the 400 richest Americans paid more than half of their income in taxes. Today, the super-rich control a greater share of America’s wealth than during the Gilded Age of the Carnegies and Rockefellers[1] and yet US billionaires pay only around 8% [2] of their income (induding capital gains) in personal income taxes, corresponding to about 0.5% [3] of their estimated wealth. For the first time in the history of the United States, billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans.
February 29, 2024. As for the first time a proposal for a global minimum tax on the super-rich was discussed at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in São Paulo earlier today, Nobel laurate and ICRICT co-chair Joseph Stiglitz said:
“Under Brazil’s leadership, the issue of taxing the super-rich is finally being discussed by the G20. I urge G20 leaders to adopt this new agenda on international tax coordination to ensure that these individuals start paying their fair share to enable governments to face the challenges of climate change, pandemics, and inequality, and make essential investments in education, health, infrastructure and technology.”.
Renowned economist and ICRICT co-chair Professor Jayati Ghosh said:
“We applaud the leadership of Brazil in pushing a new international tax agenda focused on taxation of the super-rich and we urge G20 leaders to embrace this much needed agenda. It is time that we put an end to the ability of the super-rich to pay less taxes than a teacher in Delhi or a factory worker in Sao Paulo, which is enabled by the failures in our international tax system.”
Il Fatto Quotidiano
Italia
Inequality
USA
