RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Brazil’s finance minister told his peers on Thursday at a G20 meeting in Sao Paulo that countries should implement a global tax on the super-rich in an effort to tackle rampant tax evasion.
Fernando Haddad said tax evasion can be resolved through international cooperation so that “these few individuals make their contribution to our societies and to the planet’s sustainable development.”
He added that Brazil is pushing for a declaration on international taxation by G20 members that he hopes would be ready in July. But in a press conference at the end of the meeting, he recognised the path would be far from smooth.
“There will be a lot of debate about this, which is absolutely natural, especially because not every country feels the same way about this problem that was brought to the G20 by Brazil,” he said.
Brazil currently has the presidency of the 20 leading rich and developing nations and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has put issues that concern the developing world such as the reduction of inequalities and the reform of multilateral institutions, at the heart of its agenda.
“Brazil has a role to play, a legitimacy to use on the issues that need to be addressed and that are not always represented in the G20,” Haddad said, pointing to environmental, social and fiscal issues.
According to a 2023 study by advocacy group Tax Justice Network, countries around the world could lose up to USD4.8 trillion in tax revenue over the next decade due to tax havens. And a report earlier this year by the EU Tax Observatory cited by Haddad, found that billionaires worldwide have effective tax rates equivalent of between zero per cent and 0.5 per cent of their wealth.
In recent years, scandals such as the Panama Papers Leak and the Paradise Papers have shone a light on the pervasiveness of tax evasion and avoidance in business.
Meanwhile, the gap between the super-rich and the bulk of the global population has been supercharged since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to anti-poverty organisation Oxfam International.
