US backs tax on super-rich but rules out global deal at G20

The United States supports a proposal to tax the super-rich but rules out including the issue in an international agreement, said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is attending a G20 meeting in Brazil on Thursday.

“We will work with Brazil on this proposal before the G20 meeting, but achieving international coordination on tax policy is difficult, and we do not see the need to negotiate a global agreement on this issue,” the US Treasury Secretary said.

Janet Yellen, attending a meeting of G20 finance ministers that began Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, told a news conference that introducing taxes to tax the super-rich is an issue that needs to be decided individually by each country, and acknowledged that the United States has also thought about it.

“All countries must take steps to make their tax systems fair and progressive,” he said.

The Treasury Secretary added that the US is one of the countries that “strongly” supports progressive taxation and wants rich people with high incomes to pay more taxes.

“In the United States, there is a project underway in this regard that provides for a tax rate for millionaires. This is an important initiative that is worth it and that many countries can adopt,” said Janet Yellen.

The Brazilian government, which holds the presidency of the G20 this year, has proposed to the forum of the world’s 20 largest economies that it create a tax on the incomes of the super-rich to finance global projects to combat poverty, hunger and climate change. .

The world’s richest people use a range of tricks to avoid paying taxes, meaning they end up paying proportionately less than the poorest, according to Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.

A study commissioned by Brazil found that if the world’s nearly 3,300 billionaires paid taxes equivalent to 2% of their wealth, up to $250 billion (€230 billion) could be raised annually.

The coordinator of the G20 finance ministers’ meeting, Brazilian Ambassador Tatiana Rosito, confirmed today that negotiators had made progress on three documents, one of which, unprecedentedly, concerns international cooperation on tax issues and includes a proposal to introduce a tax on the super-rich, but declined to comment on Janet Yellen’s statements or to disclose details of the documents prepared by the technical group’s negotiators.

Portugal, which like Angola was invited by the Brazilian Presidency as an observer member of the G20, is represented at the event by the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ines Domingos (meeting of Development Ministers) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel (meeting of the G20 Task Force on a Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty) and the Under-Secretary of State for the Budget, José Maria Brandão de Brito (G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Presidents).

In Fortaleza, from today until Friday, the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, will represent Portugal at the meeting of the Working Group on Employment.

The priorities of the Brazilian government as G20 chair are the fight against hunger, poverty and inequality, sustainable development and global governance reform.

The G20 includes the world’s 10 largest economies: the United States, China, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, India, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, as well as the European Union and the African Union.

Brazil, which holds the G20 presidency from the first day of December 2023, has invited Portugal, Angola, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Nigeria, Norway and Singapore to observe the work of the organization, as well as the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP).