FRANKFURT—The U.S. opposes a proposed global wealth tax on billionaires, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said, rejecting an idea floated by Brazil, France and other nations to tip the economic scales away from the megarich.
It is Brazil’s turn to lead the Group of 20 major economies this year and the country has called on the group to develop a coordinated approach for taxing ultrawealthy individuals who can move their money into low-tax jurisdictions. The goal is to mirror a global minimum tax on corporations, which roughly 140 countries signed up for in 2021 but has since run into roadblocks in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Setting aside, for a moment, the principle that people should not be taxed by extragovernmental bodies in which they are not represented, all of these kinds of proposals are designed to do one thing: redistribute the United States’ wealth to other countries. The U.S. has the most billionaires, the most wealth, the most Fortune 500 companies, etc. Other countries want to take that wealth for themselves. That’s all this is and Yellen is right to oppose it.
Ironically, (generally I am Mr defense of Laissez Faire type economics) I would not object to that tax in the slightest provided the country(s) where business was conducted received the taxes.
I just think that there are so many laws protecting the ultra wealthy, including hiding their money and businesses offshore to avoid certain taxes or tax rates, that holding them culpable world wide is the only way to actually get them to pay a decent share of the taxes that the middle class, for example, can never avoid, duck, or reduce.