How billionaires get away with paying less tax than you
5/22/202641 min
As billionaire wealth soars to unprecedented heights, calls to “tax the rich” are getting louder across the world. But while politicians on the left often champion wealth taxes, governments have repeatedly struggled to make them work in practice. So why have they failed? And could that finally be changing?
This Friday, Lewis is joined by French economist Gabriel Zucman, the architect of the so-called “Zucman Tax” and one of the most influential voices in the global debate on inequality. Drawing on his new book We Need to Tax Billionaires, Zucman explains how extreme wealth has created what some see as two separate economic realities: ordinary citizens on one side, and a billionaire class operating on an entirely different political and financial plane on the other.
From private jets to ballooning fortunes, why have traditional tax systems have struggled to keep up? And could a coordinated global approach to taxing billionaires reshape democracy itself?
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Lewis Goodall· Host0:28
[upbeat music] This is a Global Player original podcast.
Gabriel Zucman· Guest0:35
The minimum tax for the super-rich has to be expressed as a fraction of their wealth.
Lewis Goodall· Host0:39
The tax problem makes the problem worse because while the rest of us are paying large amounts of taxes, or a large portion of our taxes in the income, these people are not paying much, or if anything- This is not to say that we can fix all the problems of the world just with taxing billionaires If all of France's billionaires was to flee to the Cayman Islands tomorrow, the loss of tax revenue to the country would be insignificant.
Gabriel Zucman· Guest1:03
Defining question of the 21st century, meaning this battle between oligarchic forces on the one hand, and democratic forces on the other hand.
Lewis Goodall· Host1:12
We need to tax the billionaires. You hear it all the time. Around the world, the populist left, others too, argue there are two economic worlds, them and us. Not just the rich, but the super, super rich, the haves and the have yachts. There can be no doubt, in some ways,