At World Economic Forum 2022, More Than 150 Millionaires Asked To Be Taxed ¡®More & Right Now'

At this year¡¯s World Economic Forum in Davos, a group of over 150 millionaires named ¡°Patriotic Millionaires¡± are calling on the elite attendees to tax them more and right now.

The WEF annual meeting 2022 began on 22nd May 2022 and ends tomorrow, i.e. 26th May 2022.

As per a report in CNBC, the group published an open letter on Monday reiterating calls for the attendees of WEF to ¡°acknowledge the danger of unchecked wealth inequality around the world, and publicly support efforts to tax the rich.¡±

¡°Tax us, the rich, and tax us now,¡± the letter reportedly said and included actor Mark Ruffalo and Disney heiress Abigail Disney among its signatories.

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They explained in the letter that the inequality baked into the international tax system had created distrust between the people of the world and its rich elites.

To restore that trust, the group argued that it would take a ¡°complete overhaul of a system that up until now has been deliberately designed to make the rich richer.¡±

¡°To put it simply, restoring trust requires taxing the rich,¡± the millionaires reportedly said.

Some of the millionaires even staged pro-taxation protests at Davos over the weekend.

The Ongoing Cost Of Living Crisis

This latest call from the rich to be taxed more comes as rising prices are putting people across the world into the cost of living crisis.

Patriotic Millionaires referred to an Oxfam brief that got published on Monday, which found a billionaire was minted every 30 hours during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Oxfam estimated that nearly 1 million people could fall into extreme poverty every 33 hours this year.

Julia Davies, the founding member of Patriotic Millionaires U.K., said that ¡°Global crises are not accidental, they are the result of bad economic design.¡±

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Also Read: Taxing The Richest! US President Joe Biden Proposes New ¡®Minimum¡¯ 20% Tax On Billionaires

¡®Race To The Bottom¡¯?

Speaking to CNBC on a panel in Davos yesterday, Oxfam Executive Director Gabriela Bucher said that last year¡¯s multilateral agreement proposing that companies pay at least 15% tax on earnings, did not go far enough.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development tax reform agreement was signed by 136 countries and jurisdictions in October, though it is yet to be implemented.

Bucher pointed out that if the agreed rate had been set higher, at 25%, as recommended by tax experts around the world, this would raise a further $17 billion for the developing world.

She later went on to say that ¡°You can accumulate as much wealth as you want, but if everything ends around you then it doesn¡¯t make much sense.¡±

Also Read: Research Says More Than 250,000 UK Households Will Fall Into Extreme Poverty Next Year

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