wealth

EU governments are losing out on a staggering 286.5 billion euros in revenue annually, equivalent to 33 million euros per hour, due to their failure to fairly tax Europe’s wealthiest. This amount, equivalent to Finland’s GDP, represents what a European wealth tax of up to 5 percent could raise every year, according to Oxfam’s analysis. 

A staggering new poll has revealed that support for higher taxes on wealth is popular with dollar millionaires from across G20 countries. It comes as 260 millionaires and billionaires have signed a new letter demanding world leaders increase their taxes, to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The polling is part of the “Proud to Pay More” report, published alongside the letter, which profiles some of the world’s wealthiest people on why they support higher taxes on themselves.

The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.

Pressure is piling on the G20 to lead a global push to increase taxes on the richest citizens back to past levels that most people believe were fairer and more useful for society. 

The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population, reveals a new Oxfam report today. During the past decade, the richest 1 percent had captured around half of all new wealth. 

A group of over 100 millionaires and billionaires from nine countries published today an open letter to government and business leaders, calling for permanent annual wealth taxes on the very richest to help reduce extreme inequality and raise revenue for sustained, long-term increases in public services like healthcare. 

The world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty. 

Why is it taken for granted that a person is “successful” because they are a self-made millionaire? Who decides what is a success, and what is a failure? These questions help us understand what dominant narratives are, how they are shaped, and how they affect our lives. It’s time for them to be contested. With the right tools, change movements can start to tell a new story.

While India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it is also one of the most unequal countries. The richest have cornered a huge part of the wealth created while the poor are still struggling to earn a minimum wage and access quality education and healthcare services. Join our campaign and fight inequality today.

Billionaire fortunes increased by 12 percent last year – or $2.5 billion a day - while the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11 percent, reveals a new report from Oxfam today.