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Millionaires Urge Governments to Raise Taxes on Wealthy

Posted on July 14, 2020

Millionaires from the United States and six other countries are calling on their governments to impose higher taxes on the wealthy to generate much-needed revenue to aid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The impact of this crisis will last for decades. . . . We owe a huge debt to the people working on the frontlines of this global battle,” a group of wealthy individuals calling itself Millionaires for Humanity wrote in an open letter. The group said the problems caused by and revealed by the pandemic cannot be solved by donating money to charities, and it called for permanent tax increases on the wealthiest to fund healthcare systems, schools, and security. 

“We, the undersigned millionaires, ask our governments to raise taxes on people like us. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently,” the letter says, noting that the pandemic could drive half a billion people into poverty worldwide, and that millions will continue to lose their jobs because of business closures.

The Millionaires for Humanity project is supported by several advocacy organizations, including Tax Justice UK, Oxfam International, and Patriotic Millionaires, a group of high-net-worth Americans. Among the letter's signatories are Abigail and Tim Disney of the Walt Disney Co. At press time it included over 80 signatures from millionaires in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada.

Calls for wealth taxes have increased in recent weeks, but they have gained little traction so far. New Zealand’s deputy prime minister on June 28 dismissed out of hand a proposal by the Green Party calling for a 1 percent tax on net assets over NZD 1 million, increasing to 2 percent for net assets over NZD 2 million. On July 1 a German member of the European Parliament recommended that the German EU Council presidency consider a one-time wealth tax to compel the top 1 percent of EU citizens to give up to 10 percent of their wealth to aid in economic recovery.

Also, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation said in a June 15 report that COVID-19 economic recovery plans should include a minimum corporate tax rate and wealth taxes. The group said the economic fallout from the pandemic will probably be worse than that from the 2008 financial crisis, when global tax revenues declined 11.5 percent between 2007 and 2009.

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