The Economist
Gabriel Zucman makes the case for a billionaire tax
The super-rich should pay more tax. So says Gabriel Zucman. The French economist has spent his career uncovering the hidden workings of tax havens, who uses them and how.
The super-rich should pay more tax. So says Gabriel Zucman. The French economist has spent his career uncovering the hidden workings of tax havens, who uses them and how.
On taxes and much else, California has often led the country. In 1978 the state’s voters approved Proposition 13, which strongly limited tax increases.
Quentin Parrinello revealed that President Claudia Sheinbaum committed to evaluating a “fair and progressive” tax model during her participation in the fourth Summit in Defense of Democracy in Barcelona.
This initiative has gained prominence on the international distributive justice agenda and was the central topic of a recent debate among experts at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), where the latest report of the International Tax Observatory was presented.
In an interview, French economist Quentin Parrinello recalled that the recent International Tax Observatory (ITO) report indicated that a minimum wealth tax of 2% could generate an additional $10 billion in annual revenue for the country.
Although the text was later rejected in the Senate, this “Zucman tax,” for which the economist is the main intellectual architect, has become a symbol of the fiscal justice defended by the entire left, from the Socialist Party to La France Insoumise.
Wealth belonging to Mexicans equivalent to just over 9 percent of the national GDP is held outside the country, in financial centers, and transferred in the form of shares, bonds, holdings in investment funds, and associated bank deposits, according to the Atlas of the Offshore World.
Giulia Varaschin, senior tax policy adviser at the International Tax Observatory, who recently coauthored a study on wealth taxes, says there is little academic evidence that such taxes cause the wealthy to leave at a notable scale.
There is nothing radical about it. On the contrary, the proposal is minimalist. It is simply about correcting an anomaly in our tax systems, which allows very large fortunes to largely escape income tax.
Chiochetti and her co-author Ninon Moreau-Kastler said a more effective structure could be based on a number that is “not manipulable.”
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