IMF Boss Says Raise Taxes On The Rich To Tackle Inequality
Source: The Guardian
Raising income tax on the wealthy will help close the growing gap between rich and poor and can be done without harming growth, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.
Kristalina Georgieva, the IMFs managing director, said higher marginal tax rates for the better off were needed as part of a policy rethink to tackle inequality.
In a sign of how the IMF has moved away from the tax-cutting approach that once formed a central part of its policy advice, Georgieva said there needed to be a different approach to tackling what had become one of the most complex and vexing challenges in the global economy.
The IMF chief, writing in a blog, said: Inequality of opportunity. Inequality across generations. Inequality between women and men. And, of course, inequality of income and wealth. They are all present in our societies and unfortunately in many countries they are growing.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/07/imf-boss-says-raise-taxes-on-the-rich-to-tackle-inequality
What Is The IMF, International Monetary Fund? In the 1990s, the IMF was at the heart of the Washington consensus a free-market approach to running economies that included the belief that tax cuts for the better off would have trickle down benefits through greater innovation and higher growth. The IMF functions as the global lender of last resort, bailing out countries in financial difficulty and issuing policy advice alongside its interventions.
But the IMF has shifted it stance amid evidence of weak growth, a concentration of wealth among the top 0.1% of the population, and a falling share of national output going to workers. The worlds 26 richest billionaires including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planets population, according to Oxfam. In a report last year, the charity said a global wealth tax on the 1% would raise an estimated $418bn (£325bn) a year enough to educate every child not in school and provide healthcare that would prevent 3 million deaths.
The IMF managing director, who succeeded Christine Lagarde last year, said higher taxes on the better off, the use of digital tools to boost tax collection, and reducing corruption would help fund government spending to expand opportunities for those communities and individuals that have been falling behind.
------------
- Even The IMF Is Calling For Higher Taxes On The Rich, Truthdig, Jan. 7, 2020
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/even-the-imf-is-calling-for-higher-taxes-on-the-rich/
- International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
ck4829
(35,077 posts)appalachiablue
(41,145 posts)pecosbob
(7,541 posts)promoting corporate agriculture and extractive industries as well as a plethora of white elephant infrastructure projects that do little but bleed the populous of whatever nation they've decided to screw with this year and fatten the despoilers bank accounts.
Farmer-Rick
(10,185 posts)But it merely became another tool for the filthy rich to control our national wealth.
Good intentions became a corrupt tool of the filthy rich.
Farmer-Rick
(10,185 posts)The RepubliCON Great Depression. It stopped the American filthy rich from ruling as an oligarchy for about 90 years.
All the problems we have today can be traced back to the corruption caused by capitalism. It is a stagnate and corrupt system that is eating humanity and destroying this planet.