Governments should open a new front in the international clampdown on tax evasion with a global minimum tax on billionaires, which could raise $250 billion annually, the EU Tax Observatory said on Monday.

If levied, the sum would be equivalent to only 2% of the nearly $13 trillion in wealth owned by the 2,700 billionaires globally, the research group hosted at the Paris School of Economics said.

Currently billionaires’ effective personal tax is often far less than what other taxpayers of more modest means pay because they can park wealth in shell companies sheltering them from income tax, the group said in its 2024 Global Tax Evasion Report.

“In our view, this is difficult to justify because it risks to undermine the sustainability of tax systems and the social acceptability of taxation,” the observatory’s director Gabriel Zucman told journalists.

Billionaires’ personal tax in the United States is estimated to be close to 0.5% and as low as zero in otherwise high-tax France, the Observatory estimated.

  • iopq@lemmy.world
    63·
    1 year ago

    That’s… a tiny sum. It wouldn’t even cover the current deficit which is 1.685 trillion

    It wouldn’t even go towards servicing the debt, just making it grow slower

      • iopq@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        But you realize this is world-wide, not even just the US? Even if the US collects it, it would only be a fraction of this number. If the US collects it, but other countries don’t, then billionaires will become citizens of other countries for tax purposes

    • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
      1·
      1 year ago

      I was gonna say… This $250 Billion amount would barely cover any 6 month span of omnibus bills in US Congress.

      Biden just proposed $105 Billion in spending on Ukraine/Israel/Border spending.