Group of 102 wealthy people say tax would help tackle gulf between rich and poor
More than 100 members of the global super-rich called on Wednesday for governments around the world to “tax us now” to help pay for the pandemic response and tackle the gulf between rich and poor., said the current tax system is rigged in their favour and needs to be rewritten to make taxation fairer for hard-working people and restore trust in politics.
“Restoring trust requires taxing the rich,” they said in the letter, published as world leaders and business executives meet for a virtualWorld Economic Forum. “The world – every country in it – must demand the rich pay their fair share. Tax us, the rich, and tax us now.” That would be enough, they said, to “lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty; make enough vaccines for the world and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for all the citizens of low and lower-middle-income countries .”
Taxing the UK’s wealthiest 119,000 people at these rates would raise an estimated £43.7bn, a year, according to an analysis by campaign groups FightThe signatories said this would be enough to: