*ISLAMABAD – The world’s 26 richest people own the same wealth as thepoorest half of humanity, Oxfam said Monday, urging governments to hiketaxes on the wealthy to fight soaring inequality.*
A new report from the charity, published ahead of the World Economic Forumin Davos, also found that billionaires around the world saw their combinedfortunes grow by $2.5 billion each day in 2018.
The world’s richest man, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, saw his fortune increase to$112 billion last year, Oxfam said, pointing out that just one percent ofhis wealth was the equivalent to the entire health budget of Ethiopia, acountry of 105 million people.
The 3.8 billion people at the bottom of the scale meanwhile saw theirwealth decline by 11 percent last year, Oxfam said, stressing that thegrowing gap between rich and poor was undermining the fight againstpoverty, damaging economies and fuelling public anger.
“People across the globe are angry and frustrated,” warned Oxfam executivedirector Winnie Byanyima in a statement.
The numbers are stark: Between 1980 and 2016, the poorest half of humanitypocketed just 12 cents on each dollar of global income growth, comparedwith the 27 cents captured by the top one percent, the report found.
*Under-taxing the rich*
Oxfam warned that governments were exacerbating inequality by increasinglyunderfunding public services like healthcare and education at the same timeas they consistently under-tax the wealthy.
Calls for hiking rates on the wealthy have multiplied amid growing popularoutrage in a number of countries over swelling inequality.
In the United States, new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez madeheadlines earlier this month by proposing to tax the ultra-rich up to 70percent.
The self-described Democratic Socialist’s proposal came after PresidentDonald Trump’s sweeping tax reforms cut the top rate last year from 39.6percent to 37 percent.
And in Europe, the “yellow vest” movement that has been rocking France withanti-government protests since November is demanding that PresidentEmmanuel Macron repeal controversial cuts to wealth taxes on high earners.
“The super-rich and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than theyhave in decades,” the Oxfam report said, pointing out that “the human costs— children without teachers, clinics without medicines –- are huge”.
“Piecemeal private services punish poor people and privilege elites,” itsaid, stressing that every day, some 10,000 people die due to lackingaccess to affordable healthcare.
The report, released as the world’s rich, famous and influential beganarriving for the plush annual gathering at the luxury Swiss ski resorttown, urged governments to “stop the race to the bottom” in taxing richindividuals and big corporations.
Oxfam found that asking the richest to pay just 0.5 percent extra tax ontheir wealth “could raise more money than it would cost to educate all 262million children out of school and provide healthcare that would save thelives of 3.3 million people”. – APP/AFP