Headline : Let them eat cake!

Read more from the original article on here at www.ips-journal.eu.

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Infrastructure, public services and sustainable development - in view of the huge investment backlog, people like to point to the tight public purse. In reality, we are not as strapped as it seems, the money is just not optimally distributed.

Every year, Oxfam presents figures on how global wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small group of super-rich people. In 2017, eight men alone owned as much as the poorer half of humanity. Since 2020, the five richest men in the world have doubled their wealth once again, while five billion people have become poorer in the same period. In its latest yearbook, the Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit (Tax Justice Network) calculated that the four richest families in Germany have more wealth than the poorer half of the population combined - and they have to pay comparatively little tax for it. Hardly any other country taxes labour as high and capital as low as Germany. Simultaneously, high net worth individuals and multinational corporations are still treated with kid gloves when it comes to taxation. In addition, there are many opportunities to avoid taxes and shift profits and assets to low-tax locations. It is therefore only logical that demands are now being made on social media for a payment card for billionaires to prevent them from moving their money abroad.

Because wealth-related tax initiatives within a national framework always harbour the risk of migration and relocation to other locations, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad has put an internationally coordinated approach on the agenda as part of Brazil's G20 presidency. In doing so, he is taking up the proposal by French economist Gabriel Zucman, which envisages imposing a global minimum tax of two per cent on the richest of the rich. If all countries do this together, it will be difficult to avoid taxation.

The initiative has received prominent support from finance and economy ministers from South Africa, Spain and the German Development Minister Svenja Schulze. In a joint article that appeared in several newspapers simultaneously, they call for a global tax on billionaires under the heading ‘Tax the super-rich!’. Progressive politicians would do well to take the lead in the movement for more distributive justice. The social majorities for this have long been in place. Unsurprisingly, the project is not well received by neoliberals. They cling to the narrative that low taxes for the wealthy promote economic growth so that everyone benefits in the end. Empirical studies, though, show the opposite.

Read more from the original article on here at www.ips-journal.eu.

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