Ramit Mehrotra, Pune
The world’s 1% of the elite population has amassed $42 trillion in the last ten years, according to the survey conducted by the not-for-profit organisation Oxfam, on Thursday, ahead of a G20 summit, in Brazil.
The sum of the net worths of the world’s five richest men has doubled by more than $869 billion, since 2020, while five billion people have slipped into poverty.
The anti-poverty agency calculated that at least 148 corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, allowing massive pay-outs of shareholders, despite the miserable plight of workers, who were ridden with inflation and wage cuts.
The report, based on the findings of International Labour Organization, World Bank, Forbes annual rich list, and many such prestigious research organizations, that aspirations of “human and society as part of the broader social system” has not even scratched the surface.
The organisation added that the average wealth per person in the top 1% rose by nearly $400,000, in place of $335, in the last decade. This indicates the rifting divide between the rich and poor, and the rising inequality among income groups.
The report also pointed out that billionaires are paying taxes at 0.5 % of their total income. The G20 Finance Ministers will discuss the global policy to increase tax rates for the rich. The proposal is backed by South Africa, France, and Spain.
The inflation-spiked surge in the income of the top five billionaires of the world, their earnings attribute to the string gains in the assets of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and investor Warren Buffett. Nearly 80% of billionaires live in G20 countries.
Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam International, stressed the growing momentum on the decreased tax rates of the rich and asked the governments to have an ambition to establish a global standard of equality in incomes.
Oxfam pointed out that annual wealth tax of at least 8% would be required to reduce billionaire’s rising wealth. The previous month, Oxfam criticized nations for overestimating their climate finance contributions to developed countries.
The wealth tax was abolished in India in 2015, and replaced with 2% supercharge, in addition to the 10%, for those earning more than Rs. 1 crore every year.