Oxfam: Impose high tax on world's super-rich to bridge inequality

• Published date: 17 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Oxfam in Nigeria has called for higher taxation of world's super-rich persons to breach the inequality gap in many sectors, and added that for the past decade they extraordinarily grabbed half of all new wealth, with billionaire fortunes increasing by $2.7 billion a day even as at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages. Oxfam in a report 'Davos 2023 Inequality Report' pointed out that a tax of up to five per cent on the world's multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.

Oxfam in Nigeria in a report said that three richest Nigerians are currently wealthier than 83 million Nigerians. This fact is contained in a report titled 'Davos 2023 Inequality Report' unveiled during a press conference in Abuja by the Country Director, Oxfam in Nigeria, Dr Vincent Ahonsi, who was represented by the Deputy Programmes Director/Budget Business Development Manager, Regina Afiemo, along with Executive Director, Connected Development, CD, Hamza Lawal, Coordinator Climate Justice Project, Oxfam in Nigeria, Kenneth Akpan, and Project Coordinator, Fiscal Accountability for Inequality Reduction, Henry Ushie.

According to the report, in Nigeria, the richest 0.003 per cent Nigerians (6, 355 individuals worth $5 million and above) have 1.4 times more wealth than 107 million Nigerians. A wealth tax of two per cent on the millionaires, three per cent on those with wealth above $50 million and five per cent on the Nigerian billionaires would raise $3.2 billion annually. This would be enough to double health spending. Nigeria has one of the lowest health budgets in the world.

Oxfam is calling for more tax on billionaires and not workers and is a message sent to world leaders ahead of the World Economic Forum.

, WEF, orgainsed Davos 2023 where 'Survival of the Richest' is published on the opening day of the conference, while world elites are gathering in the Swiss ski resort as extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years. Ahonsi said: 'The wealth of Nigeria billionaires has grown by a third since the start of COVID-19 pandemic. 'The richest men in Nigeria have more wealth than 83 million Nigerians. The richest one per cent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 per cent of the world's population, reveals a new Oxfam report today. During...