Taxes on large fortunes generate 60 cents out of every ten euros collected by the European Union’s public treasury, while taxes on consumption and income, which affect the average citizen more, represent eight out of every ten euros that go into public coffers, according to an analysis by the NGO Oxfam.
Specifically, In 2022, wealth taxes represented 5.8% of the Community bloc’s tax revenues. and those applied to capital income, including corporate tax, 16.2% of these.
Meanwhile, taxes on labour, particularly income taxes, accounted for more than half of what was collected by the Treasury (50.6%) and taxes on consumption, such as VAT, 27.3%, according to the Oxfam study, which uses data from Eurostat and the European Union Commission.
“Taxes that disproportionately affect ordinary Europeans – to consumption and work – generate 13 times more revenue than inheritance taxwhich are paid for mainly by the super-rich,” the organization said in a statement.
In Spain, the distribution is similar: 50.6% of the collection comes from labor taxes, 25.77% from consumption taxes, 14.9% from capital income taxes and 8.72% from wealth taxes.
Although the very wealthy also pay income and consumption taxes, these have a greater impact on poorer Europeans, as they take a proportionally larger share of their income: unlike the richest, they have fewer alternative sources of income than work and spend a larger portion of it on essential goods and services, such as food.
Oxfam recalls that In 2022, the richest 1% held a quarter of all personal wealth in the EU and the ultra-rich (some 3,650 people representing 0.001% of the population) have increased their wealth by 237%, and points out that while taxes on this group have been reduced in recent years, those who most affect the average European have increased their wealth
Between 2000 and 2023, the average tax rate applied in the EU to the highest incomes fell from 44.8% to 37.9%, and that applied to the largest companies fell from 32.1% to 21.2%.
However, between 2010 and 2022, the average tax rate on earned income increased from 33.3% to 34.8%, and that of consumption rates increased from 17.7% to 18.7%, in accordance with the organization.
“The ultra-rich accumulate more than they can spend while they avoid taxes and the rest of us carry the bulk of the tax burden on our shoulders as we try to make ends meet. “A European wealth tax is not only urgent, it is fair,” said Chiara Putaturo, Oxfam’s European tax expert, in a statement..
The organization calculates that a wealth tax of up to 5% for EU billionaires and billionaires would bring in €286.5 billion a year and is promoting a European Citizens’ Initiative that calls on the EU executive to act in this regard, for which they are doing so. One million signatures are obtained. disappeared, of which 300,000 have been obtained so far.
In this sense, Putaturo welcomed the existence of a “growing consensus” in international politics and among citizens on the need to impose taxes on the “super-rich.”
