A coordinated global effort may end bank secrecy and reduce opportunities for multinationals to shift earnings to low-tax countries.
Currently billionaires’ effective personal tax is often far less than what other taxpayers of more modest means pay because they can park wealth in shell companies sheltering them from income tax, the group said in its 2024 Global Tax Evasion Report. Growing wealth inequality in some countries is fuelling calls for the richest citizens to bear more of the tax burden as public finances struggle to cope with ageing populations, huge financing needs for climate transition and legacy Covid debt.
The 2018 launch of automatic sharing of account information has reduced the amount of wealth held in offshore tax havens by a factor of three, the observatory estimated. In the absence of a broad international push for a minimum tax on billionaires, Zucman said a “coalition of willing countries” could unilaterally lead the way.