Taxing the rich back in spotlight

Taxing the rich back in spotlight

PARIS: It's an idea championed by US President Joe Biden, leading economists and even the International Monetary Fund - make the rich pay more taxes to replenish public coffers and narrow huge wealth gaps. Biden wants to end his predecessor Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich and close what US officials see as loopholes benefiting the wealthiest Americans in order to fund a $1.8 trillion middle-class families spending program.

But even as other governments seek to revive economies pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic, such initiatives would face an uphill battle as tax rates for the rich have been coming down everywhere for the past 40 years. The prominent French economist Thomas Piketty called for a global tax of two percent on all fortunes exceeding €10 million in a column in the newspaper Le Monde earlier this month.

Such a levy would raise €1.0 trillion ($1.2 trillion) per year, Piketty told AFP. He said the funds could be used to narrow the gap between the world's richest and poorest nations since "the sums would be shared among all countries as a proportion of their population.“

Tax the rich 'now'

Also this month, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, professors at the University of California, Berkeley,