The signatories include Disney heir Abigail Disney, screenwriter Simon Pegg and Valerie Rockefeller, inheritor of the famed U.S. family.

More than 250 billionaires and millionaires on Wednesday reiterated their call on elected representatives of the world’s leading economies to introduce higher taxes on the very richest in society.

In an open letter to political leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the rich signatories said they wished to deliver a clear message: “Tax our extreme wealth.”

“We are surprised that you have failed to answer a simple question that we have been asking for three years: when will you tax extreme wealth?” the letter said.

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

  • doublejay1999@lemmy.worldEnglish
    614·
    10 months ago

    I made a list of all the things preventing billionaires from building community projects (such as sports facilities, primary healthcare clinics, funding teachers, child care centres) to benefit working people :

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      424·
      10 months ago

      They don’t even have to do the work.

      They can donate to progressives in primaries to offset the donations from other billionaires…

      It’s just they know they get the same PR for just saying this, so it’s all they do.

    • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.comEnglish
      62·
      10 months ago

      • Takes time and effort or you need to create an organization that handles it for you, maybe they should hold elections? Oh, wait, now we’ve created privately owned/financed shadow governments…

      • People will always bitch and moan about it either being the wrong thing, not enough, only for the press etc etc so doing it won’t help them in the slightest. Whereas being taxed will at least take heat off in the form of the specific campaigning that has been ongoing for many years now.

      • It won’t be as well utilized as if the government gets it to distribute. Now this is a contentious statement of course but a private individual no matter how rich can’t give their money the legs the government can which already has the costly structure to dispense it in place. For a specific purpose a specific organisation might vastly outperform the government of course but if you generally want it to benefit the population of your nation then taxes is the best system we have to ensure it benefits all as much as possible. And the most fair in that we can vote for how it should be used.

      Edit:

      This said I still believe it’s firmly for selfish reasons they want to be taxed more:

      • Reduce the mentioned heat on them
      • Better wealth distribution help create more of the circumstances that got them this wealth, i.e. it’s a sound long term investment.
      • Most of them have kids and they see how fucked they will be if societal and environmental problems aren’t solved
      • Most have wealth tied up in assets that will lose value if things get more skewed, if noone can afford a house they will lose value until they are “affordable”, as a basic example.