Over the past decade, the world’s richest one percent have increased their fortunes by a total of $42 trillion, according to Oxfam on Thursday.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) added that taxes on the rich have fallen to “historic lows,” leading to “obscene levels” of inequality, while the rest of the world struggles for limited resources.
This issue will be a key topic at the upcoming G20 summit in Brazil.
Brazil has prioritized international cooperation on taxing the super-rich during its presidency of the G20, a group of countries representing 80% of the world’s GDP.
At this week’s summit in Rio de Janeiro, the G20 finance ministers are expected to discuss raising levies on the ultra-wealthy and preventing billionaires from dodging tax systems.
The initiative aims to develop methods to tax billionaires and other high-income earners.
The proposal is due to be fiercely debated at the summit on Thursday and Friday, with France, Spain, South Africa, Colombia, and the African Union in favor, but the United States firmly against.
Oxfam dubbed it a “real litmus test for G20 governments,” urging them to implement an annual net wealth tax of at least eight percent on the “extreme wealth” of the super-rich.
“Momentum to increase taxes on the super-rich is undeniable,” said Oxfam International’s head of inequality policy, Max Lawson. “Do they have the political will to strike a global standard that puts the needs of the many before the greed of an elite few?”
Oxfam said that the $42 trillion figure was nearly 36 times more than the wealth accumulated by the poorer half of the world’s population. Despite this, billionaires “have been paying a tax rate equivalent to less than 0.5% of their wealth” across the globe, the NGO said.
Nearly four out of five of the world’s billionaires call a G20 nation home, Oxfam noted.
