As the rich, famous and influential meet at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, aid agency Oxfam says billionaires should be made obsolete. And 200 millionaires agree. In an open letter addressed to world leaders, they say they want to pay more tax “for the common good”.
The number of billionaires should be halved by 2030 through higher taxes and other policies to make the world a fairer place, Oxfam said at the opening of the Davos summit on Monday.
In response to this call, more than 200 millionaires from 13 different countries have written an open letter to world leaders, saying they want tax increases.
Over the past decade, according to Oxfam, the richest 10 percent of the world’s population have seen their wealth increase by 50 percent.
“You, our world leaders, should tax us, the super-rich,” the letter reads. “And you should start doing it now. We as millionaires want to make that investment.”
In its latest report entitled “Survival of the Richest”, Oxfam says the very wealthy have grown richer thanks to the cost-of-living crisis which was sparked by the Covid pandemic and soaring food and energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Since 2020, billionaire wealth has surged by $2.7 billion a day even as inflation outpaced the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers worldwide.
Credit: rfi
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