“Spain and Brazil present a joint initiative within the framework of the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Seville, to promote greater taxation of the super-rich around the world.” Always up to date … which refers to international trends to create new taxes or by raising those that already exist to companies and large assets, the government took advantage last July of the United Nations international conference on financing for development in Seville to place itself at the forefront of the race to establish a new tax on the so-called “super-rich” or “ultra-rich”, understood as those who have assets of more than 100 million euros.
Hand in hand with Lula’s Brazil, he presented an initiative with the declared aspiration of “promoting an international debate to guarantee the progressiveness and efficiency of all tax systems with the aim of reducing social inequalities in the world” and, obviously, “to this end, the focus on the taxation of large assets», as indicated in the press release released today by the Government.
The idea is inspired by 2% wealth tax which French economist Gabriel Zucman has proposed applying to assets of more than $1 billion to combat the growing inequality between the highest and lowest incomes visible in major international indicators, and it involves the unlikely creation of an international register of financial assets from which the tax could be applied.
To achieve this, the Spanish and Brazilian governments have proposed intensifying international collaboration in the area of taxation of high net worth individuals and individuals. facilitate national tax reforms in this area as a test bed.
The initiative, presented in Seville by María Jesús Montero’s number two, Jesús Gascón, includes, however, according to a first analysis of the area of the General Directorate of Taxes in charge of property taxation, published on the blog of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, “major problems” from an operational point of view.
The mysterious inheritance of the super-rich
“This proposal faces significant difficulties,” says the head of the property tax sector of the Ministry of Finance of Zucman’s proposed tax on the superrich, which the Spanish government has decided to sponsor globally, “because the determination of the real assets of the super-rich (“piercing the veil” of the different entities interposed between the official owners and the real owner) and the need for international cooperation to discover and record the global heritage of the super-rich”, he asserts.
They would not be the only obstacles to the implementation of these taxes. Let us also mention the difficulty in agreeing on homogeneous valuation methods at international level or determine which wealth taxes already paid in each jurisdiction should be deducted from the overall tax liability, leading him to conclude that “its effectiveness is a challenge”.
What precedent says is that attempts to promote these types of personalities require a global dimension to be effective and efficient. they haven’t finished curdling. The European Commission has been trying for almost thirty years, without success, to standardize the taxation of savings to avoid tax competition between countries. The common corporate tax base has been a constant headache and when the OECD managed to agree on a minimum tax of 15% on large multinationals with a common criterion, the coming to power of Donald Trump exploded this consensus.
However, the Spanish government did not hesitate to not obtain this consensus in order to embark on the adventure of implement taxes on which consensus has not yet been reached international or European, as happened with the Google tax, the tax on the profits that digital giants and other companies in the digital sector obtain with certain services; the Tobin tax, which taxes the acquisition of stakes in large listed companies; and with the minimum tax of 15% on corporate profits.
About The Author
