Why the tax on the world's richest billionaires is facing resistance in the G20!
Brazil's plan for a new tax on the world's richest billionaires is facing last-minute opposition at a two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers in Rio de Janeiro.
In comments to reporters ahead of the meeting, Brazil's Environment Minister Marina Silva said there were "some objections to issues related to the climate agenda, the financial agenda and especially the tax on the super-rich" as she tries to put together a joint statement. .
At a July meeting also held in Rio, the leaders of all 20 countries acknowledged that wealth and income disparities undermine economic growth and social cohesion.
They agreed for the first time to "engage collaboratively to ensure that extremely high net worth individuals are taxed effectively", but this commitment has yet to be strengthened and translated into action.
Silva did not mention which countries are now raising concerns, but there are reports that Argentina's President Javier Milei is taking an increasingly hard line on the issue.
Faced with such a scenario, Brazil could adjust the wording of the joint communiqué of the 20 countries, or sign it on behalf of the 19 countries with a paragraph explaining the opposing country's position.
Argentina has already refused to sign a ministerial declaration on women's empowerment at the G20 and pulled out on the third day of the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Countries such as Spain, which along with France and South Africa have been the main public backers of Brazil's proposal, are pressuring other leaders to show courage on the issue.
"There is a moment where you have to be brave and where you just have to do things that you are convinced are right," Spain's finance minister Carlos Cuerpo urged his counterparts during a visit to London on Monday.
"Here there is an element of wealth redistribution that, if we listen carefully to the results of many of the elections held in recent years, has been requested by our citizens. So we have to respond somehow," he added.
Cuerpo has previously emphasized that the first step would be to create a database of the income and assets of individuals internationally considered ultra-rich.
The plans to tax the world's 3,000 richest billionaires are based on a proposal made last year by French economist Gabriel Zucman, who argues that closing the gap through a 2% wealth tax could raise up to $250 billion ( 230 billion euros).
Oxfam estimates that the top 1% in G20 countries now account for 31% of total wealth, up from about a quarter (26%) two decades ago.
"Leaders at the Rio Summit could end the decades-long assault on taxation by the ultra-rich. Only then can we begin to heal the rifts of inequality that tear our societies apart," Oxfam Brazil Executive Director Viviana Santiago said ahead of the meeting.
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