BarcelonaWarren Buffet has been at the for over thirty years top 6 richest people in the world and, despite this, for decades he has been asking to pay more taxes because “billionaires have been pampered by Congress for a long time.”
According to Intermon Oxfam, both he and the other nine people with the most money on the list of Forbes, watch their wealth double while the incomes of 99% of the population drop. That is why personalities like the so-called Oracle d’Omaha they ask to pay more to the state in order to distribute the wealth more equitably.
But Buffet is not the only one: Walt Disney’s granddaughter and heir to the Disney giant, Abigail Disney; Berkshire Hathaway entrepreneur, investor and vice chairman Charlie Munger; Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield; one of Amazon’s early investors, Nick Hanauer; Richloom chairman and chief executive James S. Richman and Deliveroo chief design officer Stuart Frisby have been vocal in recent years in favor of raising taxes.
Rich Spaniards
In Spain there are also people of a certain economic level who have spoken out in favor of paying more taxes. This is the case of television presenter Jorge Javier Vázquez, who says that despite paying a lot, he should pay more: “Maintaining a country is worth money, with good education, with good services, with good healthcare… We we think that all this is free and you have to pay for it”.
The last to speak out was Athletic Bilbao footballer Raúl García: “I’m delighted that my taxes will go up if they go where I think they should go”. The president of Petronor, Emiliano López Atxurra, took a position a long time ago: “It seems good to me and I pay at will”. And the actress Penélope Cruz finds it logical: “Whoever has more, pays more, right?”
The youtuber Ibai Llanos spoke in the same sense and opened the melon between the sector influencer. They joined his speech streamers Wismichu, Alexelcapo, Loulogio, dJ MARIO and The Xokas.
More millionaires and more poverty
Intermon Oxfam is one of the associations that has fought most for equality and the redistribution of wealth and claims that during the last two years there was a new billionaire every 30 hours while every 33 hours a million more people entered a situation of poverty. extreme poverty
In fact, the entity reports that there are four new billionaires in Spain since the arrival of covid and that among those who were already billionaires before, wealth has grown at a rate of 6.8 million euros per day .
But the dynamic comes from afar. In 2010 in the United States a group of people with high net worth decided to protest and organize to request a restructuring of the tax system. They were the Patriotic Millionaires. The entity is currently chaired by Morris Pearl, a former BlackRock executive who retired after a long career on Wall Street to devote himself solely to the association.
“The middle class has said enough”
According to Pearl, “a lot of smart people have suddenly realized that the middle class has said enough: capitalism, if it wants to survive, will have to address it”. Wealthier people should pay, in proportion, a larger share of their income in favor of a “fairer society” and with a better distribution of wealth. The ultimate goal is to increase the standard of living of the entire population and the opportunities for the future.
In the same vein, Marlene Engelhorn, heir to one of the world’s largest chemical companies, BASF, wants to redistribute 90% of the inheritance that will be hers because “it’s not fair” to have so much money: “It shouldn’t be the my decision, what to do with my family’s money, for which I have not worked […], I don’t deserve them”. Speaking to the ARA, Engelhorn explained that he will inherit “a sum of two digits in millions of euros” and that he will not refuse it, but that he would like to pay a good part of it in taxes.
From here it is born Tax me now (tax me right now), the movement she has pushed to call for a higher tax burden in cases like hers. The proposal is that people who inherit large fortunes renounce it in order to defend and make visible the need to collect more taxes.
Similar initiatives have followed: during the pandemic, the group Millionaires for Humanity was formed, which signed a letter for governments to permanently raise taxes on the great empires. “We are not the ones who take care of the sick in the ICU. We are not the ones who drive the ambulances that will take the sick to the hospital. […] But we have money. Money that is desperately needed and will continue to be needed for years to come,” they said in the statement.
One of the youngest signatories, Liesel Pritzker Simmons, summed it up like this: “We’re part of the problem, make us pay taxes.”