(Paris) Several international organizations, including the NGO Oxfam and a group of millionaire philanthropists, are proposing the imposition of a tax on the richest people on the planet that would lift billions of others out of poverty and vaccinate the planet against COVID-19.
Posted at 7:25 p.m.
“As billions of people struggle to survive during this pandemic, the fortunes of billionaires are spiraling out of control. This can’t be fair,” said Jenny Ricks, global coordinator of the activist movement Fight Inequality Alliance, one of the collective’s member organizations, in a statement.
On Monday, an Oxfam report showed that the ten richest people on the planet, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, had seen the value of their wealth double to $1.5 trillion during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. 19, thanks to the rise in stock prices of the companies in which they are shareholders.
Along with the Fight Inequality Alliance, the NGO Oxfam, the Institute for Policy Studies, based in Washington, and the Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of wealthy Americans, are participating in this call made public on Wednesday.
This set proposes the establishment of an annual tax of 2% for people with more than 5 million dollars, 3% for assets over 50 million dollars and 5% after a billion dollars, which would bring in 2520 billion dollars each year.
With this sum, explains the collective, 2.3 billion people would be lifted out of poverty and all people on the planet could be vaccinated against COVID-19, while many countries are now showing levels hopelessly low vaccination rates, especially in Africa.
This jackpot would also offer universal health coverage and social protection to the 3.6 billion people living in low- and middle-income countries, says the collective.
A higher tax from 50 million dollars would raise up to 3620 billion dollars a year, but Jenny Ricks told AFP that the choice of a lower level of taxation is more “realistic”.
These proposals coincide with the traditional annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos (Switzerland), which is being held online for the second consecutive year due to the Omicron variant.
In an open letter to Forum attendees, more than 100 millionaires, including members of the Patriotic Millionaires, said Wednesday that the current tax system is “not fair.” “Every country in the world must demand that the rich pay their fair share,” reads the letter. “Tax us rich people and tax us now. »