2024-07-27 08:00:26
A “story” decision. The G20 countries, meeting for two days in Rio de Janeiro, agreed on Friday to “cooperate” to tax the super-rich more, in the name of fighting inequalities, but without going so far as to agree on global one tax.
Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the head of the G20 this year, has been pushing for several months the idea of creating a minimum tax on the richest. The proposal ultimately did not achieve consensus during the meeting of finance ministers of the group, created by the world’s 19 largest economies, the European Union and the European Union, but an agreement was reached to encourage everyone to pay taxes measure more.
“With full respect for fiscal sovereignty, we will try to cooperate to ensure that the very rich are paid effective taxes,” he said in a statement on “international tax cooperation” printed at the end of the work. The speech highlights that “wealth and income inequalities compromise economic growth and social integration and increase social vulnerabilities”, and that “effective, fair and progressive tax policies”.
“From a moral point of view, it is important that the twenty richest countries think that we have a problem which is to have progressive taxes on the poor and not on the rich. ,” said the minister of finance in Brazil. Fernando Haddad when closing press conference.
A decision welcomed by economists
In addition to Brazil, France, South Africa, Spain and the African Union support the export tax of the super-rich. But the United States has rejected international negotiations on the subject. If they want the rich to pay their fair share, they think that taxes are the business of each country.
Being in Rio, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva welcomed the position of the G20 in favor of “fiscal justice”, suggesting the decision to cooperate with the plan to pay the taxes of the richest “time and welcome” .
A reporter on the topic when asked by Brazil, the same French economist, Gabriel Zucman was happy that “for the first time in history, the G20 countries agree that the way we pay money the heads of the rich must be changed.” The declaration published on Friday discussed the exchange of best practices and the design of strategies to combat tax evasion, to launch international cooperation in tax matters.
“It is time to move forward now,” replied the American Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, urging the heads of state and government to authorize minimum standards of packaging by November.
Another “decision”
For the NGO Greenpeace, which described Friday’s agreement as “historic”, “this is an important step for the G20 which recognizes for the first time the need to tax the super rich”. This meeting is to prepare for the meeting between the heads of state and government of the G20 scheduled for November 18 and 19, also in Rio.
G20 members also welcomed the “resolution” on Lula’s launch of a Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty on Wednesday, and emphasized the need to tackle climate change and environmental crises.
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