Majority Of Millionaires Supports Wealth Tax

A recent survey by Patriotic Millionaires UK shows that a majority of millionaires in G20 countries supports a 2% tax on wealth. When asked if any millionaires with a wealth of more than $10 million should pay the tax, 58% of the more than 2,000 millionaire survey participants said yes. As part of the same survey, 75% agreed that billionaires should pay the tax.

Between 66% and 69% said that those with a household wealth of more than $50 million and more than $100 million, respectively, should pay up. On the other hand, there is still a considerable share of respondents with household investable assets of more than $1 million who think otherwise. Almost a third opposed or was torn about the tax concerning those with a wealth of $50 million or more, while this number was 40% concerning those with assets of $10 million or more. Only 11% of surveyed millionaires definitely opposed a tax on billionaires, however.

Patriotic Millionaires UK is an organization of more than 60 British billionaires that advocate for the higher taxation of wealth and its fairer distribution. The first advocacy group by the name was founded in 2010 in the United States to lobby for the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, which were extended under President Barack Obama, however.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2024, 250 millionaires and billionaires actually demanded that global leaders take action to tax very rich individuals but change has not come. According to a 2023 report by Oxfam, only 4 cents of every tax dollar raised globally came from wealth taxes, while half the world’s billionaires lived in countries with no inheretance tax.

Meanwhile, support among the public for wealth taxes mirrors that of the millionaire survey. According to Ipsos, Global Commons Alliance and Earth4All, 68% to 70% percent in G20 countries said they were in support of a tax on wealth, on high incomes and on large business profits. Many polls across time and different countries have shown the same results.

The report by Patriotic Millionaires UK refutes the often-made claim that wealth taxes would led to capital flight and in turn, economic decline. It claims that many rich individuals would not change their residence and in fact welcome the change that they think strengthens democracy, fights global issues like climate change and not least prevents an eventual outbreak of violence over the unequal distribution of wealth.

In Support of Public Services

Three quarters of surveyed millionaires said that they thought well-funded public services and a functioning infrastructure were vital for entrepreneurs and a strong economy. 54 percent said that extreme wealth was a threat to democracy while 72 percent agreed that wealthy individuals were paying for their political influence.

According to the latest figures by the World Inequality Database, the top 10% of the wealthiest individuals in the United States held more than 70% of the country’s wealth in 2023, surpassed only by several African, Latin American and Arabian Gulf countries. In the United Kingdom, this figure stood at 57% most recently, comparable to the European Union level of 59%. Few countries achieved better result, with the most equal distributions found outside the EU in Norway at a still-high 52.6% and in Iceland at 56.7%. Within the EU, the lowest figures were 45.4% in the Netherlands and 49.4% in Slovakia.

Charted by Statista