THE VERY RICH DO NOT PAY TAXES

Around USD 11.5 trillion of the private wealth of the richest men and women in the world is currently held in tax havens, largely undeclared - and therefore probably untaxed - in their country of residence. The benefits from taxing just this individual wealth - let alone the undoubtedly larger sums lost through tax evasion and avoidance by corporations - would far outweigh any realistic increase in aid budgets. The annual worldwide income earned on these undeclared assets is likely to be about USD 860 billion. Taxing this income at a moderate 30% rate would produce around USD 255 billion annually: enough to finance the Millennium Development Goals in their entirety. Put simply, making just the very rich pay their due taxes could immediately fund measures to halve world poverty.