A recount. Taxes taxes taxes a group of millionaires just governments to raise taxes to fund a coronavirus recovery they say charity is not the solution but will governments unsub a call and how popular is this idea this is inside story. There are welcome to the program im laura kyle the Coronavirus Crisis seems to be spinning out of control on thursday the world record its worst single day rise in infections almost a quarter of a 1000000 in just 24 hours cities that had declared a tends to victory a falling back on the look down one by one. The return of restrictions is an Economic Disaster for many countries already suffering from the 1st wave governments say theyre doing what they can and some of bailing out flatlining Industries Others have chosen to spend big to create jobs encourage spending and reduce individuals debt well as others have chosen well for a Public Sector cuts as well as a rise on v. A. T. But all these measures are not permanent fixes and theyre expensive but the money having to come from somewhere now 1. 00 group of millionaires is saying that the cash or at least part of it should come from them the collective of 83 wealthy people from around the globe calling themselves millionaires for humanity have penned a letter the headline raise. Taxes on People Like Us immediately substantially permanently we have money lots of it money that is desperately needed now they say we can ensure we adequately fund our Health Systems schools and security through a permanent tax increase on the wealthiest people on the planet People Like Us theyre asking governments to force the worlds richest to help ease the economic burden ending the lesser taxes taxes taxes its the right choice its the only choice thank you so how much will list actually help or lets bring in our guests now to find out from new york we have morris poll chair of Patriotic Millionaires hes a member of millionaires for humanity and signed the petition for Milton Keynes in england aaron advani insistent professor of economics and impact rector of the Cage Research center at university of work and from london caister are in dire head of Inequality Campaign and policy at oxfam thank you all very much for joining us morris lets start with you wat inspired you to write this letter. Sure we are very concerned that were moving in a direction were going to end up with a few people with all of the money and millions and millions and billions and partner impoverished people around the world and thats not the kind of world where i want my children and grandchildren to grow up im very worried that were moving in the wrong direction and that we have to take drastic measures to stop this growing inequality and to have the opportunities for my children grow up in the kind of world i did with most people being able to afford their basic living and being able to afford to shop and buy expensive things and do all of the things that help our Business People and investors frankly get rich and do you feel that this is the only way that you can achieve this this is the main thing we need to do we need to change there were the direction were going to having a few rich people and lots of poor people so we need to take some money from the very richest the people whove made billions and billions of dollars by their businesses like amazon that deliver things to people being more valuable and have some of that to benefit the millions and millions of people who are unemployed and not sure where theyre going to be getting money to pay their august rent arent is this a good idea. I mean i think it has to be welcomed when i talk to policymakers time they will say yes this polling that says moon people would like taxes to go up on the wealthiest people but the problem is those are the people who on through those polls are the people who are going to pay the tax so maybe the worry is oh the people at the top who pay the taxes they were like and they will kind of respond and you do regularly hear news stories about you know theres been some tax changes somethings happened and one or 2 prominent billionaires have chosen to relocate their operations say to singapore d or dont want to go or something so and so its kind of hard to get across the news story that there are a lot of people potentially who are willing to stay and pay their share and so i think it can be welcomed if there are people who do feel that way for them to kind of get their point across because its much less easy to hear from them than it is to hear from the small number of people who might respond we want to come back to that point in a moment just before we do ana is supporting this initiative is just get an idea last night of of where this money is most urgently needed so also support this initiative because weve been working to fight inequality for many years now mainly because we know that inequality absence of huge barrier to quality reduction which is what fundamentally tad about and we saw you know back in january of just a 155 individuals in the world owns the same amount of wealth of the bottom half of humanity thats people who are in the same amount of wealth as 3500000000 people now that was the floor cope with 19 the situation has got so much worse not only has it got so much worse but governments are also needing to spend big bucks as you said to start to pay for the Health Response but also to take the economic response and the stimulus packages so where are they going to get this money or what and spending it on as you said and i think maybe the main issues that were looking at. Reducing inequality and Poverty Reduction here. Need to be invested in Public Universal Health Care System medicine education of lauras talked about to chip kelly now as we know people are really becoming very vulnerable in the job market and theyre going to need that sustains the court that were not going to see when the system for example comes to an end in the autumn we need long term gain social Protection Systems to get the safety net when people fall into unemployment and more. Loss of money and he said it does seem like the perfect answer to governments needing a lot of money especially at the moment but more is that as aaron said i mean its its highly unlikely isnt it the everyones going to be on board with this were talking about 83. 00 millionaires writing this letter when there are millions of millionaires in this in the world whats the feeling that you get from rich people is it generally accepted that people should be taxed more. I think most people agree that we need to do something most rich people are people who have businesses that sell things to other people a few extract minerals from the air and they dont care about where everyone else in their community is doing but most people become wealthy by having some kind of business that depends on everyone in their community having enough money to participate you know as ford said we need to pay his workers enough money they can afford to buy cars and we need everyone to think that way and i think most forward thinking long term thinking people understand that i mean this is look at what were talking about have because taxes already exist they for wealthy people i mean they increase as your income increases were looking at 37 percent in the u. S. 45 percent in the u. K. And many would feel thats enough here in the United States we made some changes to 2 or 3 years ago in tax or foreign power and wealthy people investors like me have much lower tax rates than people who actually work for a living we need to have rich people who get their income from investing pay the same tax rates of people have to work for a living and thats crazy isnt it i know that people who work for a living pay more tax than people who get their money through nonearnings absolutely because this quote from Warren Buffett who says that he pays more tax than his secretary in the company writes i think just going back to your previous point its great that we have these 83 members of the super rich who are keen to pay taxes and pay taxes now that real change never happened because they were willing to give up that power its because people have demanded it so we dont need to wait for a situation where 1000000 that are going to pay more taxes you dont know most people we have to be developing this and if you see how the system is polling across the political spectrum it really gives any momentum some of the same people across the right political spectrum coming out. In support of greater taxes on well we saw the conservative Party Last Week which is a star Political Party that has been against taxes on well poll its members teach on you know well taxes to get a feel of what theyre what their appetite is almost so we are seeing a march i think its fantastic in millionaires to come out and said they want the tax mark i think that helped convince in power that it needs to happen but its just one piece of the puzzle here we cannot wait for all millionaires. And huge gaps of government revenues and money spent so after theres a real urgency i mean that such an important point isnt it aaron because greater taxes generally tends not to be a political winner especially if youre a Republican Party as weve got in the u. S. All the conservatives as weve got in the u. K. I mean we do this and sometimes you got the chance to review in the Capital Gains tax in the u. K. Do you think that we might see more taxes on unearned income in the u. K. In the coming weeks when he reveals what hes going to do there. I mean i think the reason for their view is surely a recognition that there has been because of growing over time that the Current System is really working the taxing capital were taxing wealth and work of my own actually with andy summers from the odyssey shows that this Warren Buffett anecdote that he pays less tax than center is actually kind of true in a substantial sense among a Large Population of relatively well off people so if you look at people who have income plus Capital Gains of about 10000000. 00 pounds a quarter of them pay less tax than someone whos only 15000. 00 pounds not kind of silly copyright nobody thinks that seems like a reasonable structure for a tax system and so i think often this is sort of the idea that we look at the headline rate and say oh well you know high end people who have high incomes should be paying 45 percent because thats what the headline rate is already pointed out by maurice there are people who have money that come from investment have access to different rates in the u. K. Those rates are lower tax rates to dividends or even lower rates for Capital Gains and even lower rates if its Capital Gains on businesses that youre running and that means that people have access to these much lower rates and thats even before you think about the various other deductions and release that are available and so you have means that we really do need to think about the way that calculus talks but thats not the kind of the chances that a bit in the last budget where he would use the availability of a particular releases with entrepreneurs really which is a bit nice because it didnt matter to most people but the people who are making use of it was a long time to get up to 10000000 pounds x. 10 percent it was a very very low rate to people who were getting that kind of money so i mean theres already been a bit of a recognition that not system wasnt working but i think the review account against kind of speaks to this idea that a movie needs from that kind of source ok but will it be enough because when theres talk of labor parties so called super tax its often followed with people saying well well just have to leave the country if that happens i play back at 7. I mean this is a couple of different points so one is kind of what you think the headline tax rates should be and the point were making is that a lot of people arent paying a lot of people with high incomes or high incomes plus gains on paying headline rate and so actually changing with that top rate is actually only affecting a resident small portion of people even among the rich because many of them are using other kinds of release inductions to get lower rates were paying incomes other paying taxes are the rates on headline income tax rate thats the 1st thing the 2nd is in terms of tax design i mean if you look at say the u. S. U. S. Design of a tax system is one that tax its citizens globally wherever they have been so im not necessarily advocating that you can ask how global toxins and kind of way but certainly there are ways to think about designing a tax system that accounts for where people are making their money where they are living where they are kind of going about their business to count these different kind of aspects more so is it a given to say that the Current Administration in the white house is pretty hostile to this idea well yes current president of the United States is a Real Estate Investor and he honestly believes that Real Estate Investing is the bedrock of western civilization and those people must not pay any tax at all but most people in america believe and i think well find out in november that thats not the case but thats also in saying isnt it because the king at the candidates for the democrats we had Bernie Sanders somewhere and by talking about a wealth tax whats to biden proposing i think not sure what were going to do and it depends on whos in the United States senate and the house of representatives but i think theyre going to find a major change from the what we saw the end of 2017 with the with the massive changes that reduce taxes for the rich and raise taxes for everyone else and i somehow have all gained havent they that the tax a wealth tax would be unconstitutional is there any argument that that. Well i think that there is different kinds of taxes that most americans already pay a wealth tax because they pay property taxes on their own real estate where they live so i think its only fair that rich investors also pay a wealth tax that most middle class people d already. But thats just one more question to you before we bring in our guest again i mean its not the 1st time that youve done this is it if you push for more progressive tax system in the past i do you feel that theres a theres an audience for this that it is really going to get anywhere well sure some of the ideas we had that were considered crazy left wing nutcase ideas 5 or 10 years ago most president ial candidates the democratic side were talking about this to this year so yes weve moved the needle a long ways and weve made a lot of progress towards making the tax system more progressive and. The millionaires from beyond to say in the last that the solution is not just in donating to charities and yet weve had hugely significant donations from very wealthy people contributing to corona virus vaccines to coronavirus recovery why is it not the solution why is that not enough because we need a solution a sustainable and democratic county at the National Level for the country as you know around the world so we cant have countries relying on the use specific interests of rich land or great as that might be you know fighting specific areas of interest that they have but its not a long term Sustainable Way to be able to ensure all poverty eradication at National Level thats what governments of all governments have that to be able to provide Vital Services for that people to be able to ensure that i think we dont go hungry and we have to be accountable for that so that people and taxation expenditure on all means functions that will. You know fundamental pop a social contract about democracy if i could just make one point related to your questions tomorrow i think you know its important for us to remember that there is strong historical precedent here so in the rest of the Great Depression in europe and the us after the 2nd world war taxes on the rich were increased substantially i think of the Great Depression the us they went up to 75 percent talk to taxpayers here in europe as well while they went up need to 9090 percent of parents so we do have a circle question you know we can also see the increase in taxes on the rich so those points to have significant and enormous benefits on you know were just going to close in policy double that time which is just the 1980s that we have seen a reduction in those top. Tax that was ok i remember at the g 20 finance ministers meeting this way this weekend do you think this is going to be on the agenda or is there a significant momentum have i mean i think one dimension talks that we havent really focused on so far but probably will be on their agenda is the schools focus on multinationals so weve seen this kind of push by the o. E. C. D. Initially kind of our collective approach to thinking or how you talk to multinationals because theres always this worry about i mean we saw this week the European Commission do you get rejected by the European Court of justice that. The European Commission had said that apple had to pay tax on the c j now save that that touch should be repaid back to apple that was a quote and the reason for that was basically it was a tax due or activity was taking place on the sales that i was making elsewhere as it was an irish talks other countries in europe werent saying tax is perfect given that were going thro