Millionaires urge governments to tax them more to help fund coronavirus recovery

Screenwriter Richard Curtis and Disney heiress Abigail Disney among 83 wealthy people to sign open letter calling for higher levies

Screenwriter Richard Curtis is among 83 millionaires who signed a letter calling for higher taxes (AFP via Getty)

Dozens of millionaires and billionaires have called for higher taxes on wealth to help fund the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Wealthy individuals including British screenwriter Richard Curtis and Disney heiress Abigail Disney signed a letter urging governments to tax them more.

“Today, we, the undersigned millionaires and billionaires, ask our governments to raise taxes on people like us. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently,” they wrote in the open letter.

“We are not restocking grocery store shelves or delivering food door to door. But we do have money, lots of it. Money that is desperately needed now.”

They added: “Please, tax us. Tax us. Tax us. It is the right choice. It is the only choice. Humanity is more important than our money.”

The letter was coordinated by a group including Tax Justice UK, Oxfam and the Patriotic Millionaires, an organisation of wealthy individuals campaigning for greater equality and social justice.

“Government leaders must take the responsibility for raising the funds we need and spending them fairly,” stated the letter. “We owe a huge debt to the people working on the front lines of this global battle. Most essential workers are grossly underpaid for the burden they carry.”

Governments are borrowing hundreds of billions of pounds to help support jobs and economies through the unprecedented disruption caused by Covid-19.

While the price tag is high and rising, the consensus among economists is that to not take bold action would lead to much greater damage in the long term.

In the UK, the chancellor Rishi Sunak announced £30bn of additional support last week, including a VAT cut for hospitality businesses devastated by the pandemic.

Despite what would have been considered, in normal times, a huge fiscal intervention, a number of critics suggested the measures would not be enough to prevent mass unemployment and a deep recession.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that a £9bn pledge to pay bonuses to employers who keep furloughed workers on their jobs was “poorly targeted” and would end up going to firms that did not need it.

Calls for a fairer tax system have grown as the economic toll of Covid-19 has become clearer.

Last week, analysis by the Tax Justice Network of a trove of new data from the OECD found that multinational corporations dodged at least $330bn (£261.85bn) in tax each year by shifting profits into havens around the world.

The organisation labelled the UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as an “axis of tax avoidance”, facilitating 72 per cent of corporate tax-dodging.

Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network, labelled corporate tax avoidance as the “greatest, longest-running robbery of our times”.

“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the grave costs of an international tax system programmed to prioritise the interest of corporate giants over the needs of people.

“This new data confirms that corporate tax havens like the UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have been fuelling a race to the bottom for years, allowing the biggest corporations to syphon wealth and power away from the nurses, public services and local businesses we’re all relying on today.”

He added: “Now, more than ever, governments must reprogramme their tax systems to prioritise people’s wellbeing over the interests of the biggest corporations. That starts with transparency.“