Should the rich pay for the pandemic? Argentina thinks so. Other countries are taking a look.
By Diego Laje and
Anthony Faiola
Feb. 19, 2021 at 3:54 p.m. CST
Córdoba farmer Gabriel De Raedemaeker, first vice president of the Argentine Rural Confederation, owns 1,700 acres in Argentina’s western Pampas. (Nicolás Aguilera/for The Washington Post)
BUENOS AIRES — At his colonial-era estate in central Argentina, Gabriel De Raedemaeker says he's already calculating what parts of his farm he might need to sell. It's not that crops have failed or commodity prices are ailing. It's the government's new tax on wealth.
“The state is pushing me over the edge,” said De Raedemaeker, 54, who faces a 70 percent tax hike under this nation’s new pandemic-era levy on citizens with more than $3.4 million of assets.
At least as far back as the 1940s, when the humble-born Eva “Evita” Perón delivered fiery speeches from the balcony to her “shirtless masses,” class conflict has lingered just below the surface of this chronically indebted South American state. To dig itself out of a gaping fiscal hole made worse by the pandemic, Argentina is issuing a clarion call now echoing around the globe: Make the rich pay.
Nations have long turned to the rich in times of great crisis. After World Wars I and II, European nations and Japan embraced one-off wealth taxes to fund reconstruction. More recently, Ireland and Iceland used such taxes to help refill state coffers after the global financial crisis.
So why not, proponents argue, foist the cost of the epic global recession caused by the pandemic onto those who can most afford it?
Indeed, early data suggests pandemic-spurred recessions appear to be worsening inequality. Poverty rates have climbed, especially among younger, lower-skilled and female workers, while the wealthy are enjoying roaring stock markets and surging property values. It took only nine months for the fortunes of the globe’s 1,000 wealthiest individuals to return to pre-pandemic levels, according to the antipoverty group Oxfam International.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronarvirus-argentina-wealth-tax/2021/02/19/96fd1ec4-711b-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
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