One hundred billionaires demand in Davos to pay more taxes to save the system | “Charge us more, do it now”

“We trust taxes.” Manipulating the words bearing the US dollar decals – in God we believe or in God – a group around you 100 billionaires re-argument for more taxes. was through a An open letter published in the framework of the World Economic Forum Davos 2022, a space that has been heavily criticized for generating discussions from offices that have not subsequently translated into concrete action.

“Trust – in politics, in society, in each other – is not built in small rooms accessible only to the rich and powerful. It is not built by billionaire space travelers who make a fortune from an epidemic but pay almost nothing in taxes and offer low wages to their workers” , says the message the group is promoting National MillionairesAnd In direct reference to some of the richest men in the world, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who participate in the space race and even travel to the universe on their own, while paying less and less taxes.

“As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair. Most of us could say that while the world has gone through a tremendous amount of suffering in the past two years, in fact We have seen our wealth increase during the pandemic; Yet few, if any, of us can honestly say we pay our fair share of taxes,” the brief continues, referring to an international tax system that is “deliberately designed to further enrich the rich.”

In this context, this group of millionaires makes an extraordinary request to the governments of the world: “Taxes the wealthy and do it now“. The organization became known in 2010 in opposition to tax cuts for the rich during the administration of former US President George W. Bush. They define themselves as people who have succeeded in the capitalist system and want to save capitalism from its excesses. Their demands generally revolve around an increase in the wealth tax, a revision of the fiscal loopholes through which taxes are legally evaded, and even an increase in the minimum wage.

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Who are the National Millionaires?

The group is led by Maurice Pearl, a former BlackRock executive.. Among the signatories, in addition to Pearl, are Abigail and Tim Disney, the grandchildren and heirs of the company’s co-founder, Roy Disney, and a list of entrepreneurs, some politicians, investors and philanthropists not only from the United States but also from England, Canada, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Greenland.

In response to this message Forum spokesperson Indian a Reuters That one of the principles of the organization is to pay a fair share of taxes and that “a tax on wealth like the one in Switzerland, where the organization is headquartered, could be a good model for its development elsewhere”.

The controversy over a tax on large wealth

The debate over taxing large wealth continued during the pandemic crisis, which has exacerbated and exposed inequality between the rich and the poor around the world. During 2021, progress was made on a similar proposal during the G20 Economic Ministers Meeting. With the aim of relieving tax bunkers, a global tax of 15 per cent has been proposed for multinational corporations.

The agreement has the support of the majority of the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and will begin to be collected from 2023. Argentina supported this proposal despite a proposal to raise the number above 15. Economy Minister Martin Guzmán suggested between 21 and 25 percent.

The pandemic has exacerbated inequality

The message was published hours after the submission of the “Inequality Killing” report that guarantees this Between March 2020 and November 2021 The world’s ten richest men doubled their fortunes Going from $700,000 million to $1.5 trillion, at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1,300 million per day. in the meantime, More than 160 million people worldwide have been reduced to the poverty level compared to the period before the pandemic. That is, they have less than 5.5 dollars per day.

According to a study conducted by Patriotic Millionaires in conjunction with Oxfam and other nonprofits, the progressive wealth tax starts at 2% for those with more than $5 million and goes up to 5% for billionaires, and can raise $2.52 trillion, enough to raise 2.3 billion people. . reducing poverty and ensuring health care and social protection for individuals living in low-income countries.