The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Wednesday called for raising taxes on the world’s wealthiest people, their assets, their properties, and big business while alleviating soaring debt obligations of smaller countries.
At the same time the unelected 38-nation group cautioned governments to rein in their spending through enhanced fiscal discipline.
In its economic outlook report, the Paris-based organisation said global gross domestic product would expand by 3.2 percent, compared to 3.1 percent in its previous forecast.
“Global output growth has remained resilient and inflation has continued to moderate,” it said in the twice-yearly report.
Central banks in the United States and Europe have started to cut interest rates as inflation, which soared after the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is finally cooling.
AFP reports while it raised the world GDP outlook, the OECD sounded the alarm on rising debt, urging governments to make “stronger efforts” to contain spending and raise revenue through expanded taxation. It outlined:
Decisive fiscal actions are needed to ensure debt sustainability, preserve room for governments to react to future shocks and generate resources to help meet future spending pressures.
Governments face significant fiscal challenges from higher debt and the additional spending pressures arising from ageing populations, climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, plans to raise defence spending, and the need to finance new reforms.
The report went on to set out just how money can be redistributed from the rich to the poor through government intervention.
“On the revenue side, efforts to eliminate distortive tax expenditures and enhance revenues from indirect, environmental and property taxes are called for in many countries,” the organisation said.
Raising punitive taxes on the world’s wealthiest people and big businesses is not new.
U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris is pushing to raise taxes on corporations and richer households, as Breitbart News reported.
Harris’s economic plan would increase taxes by $5 trillion over ten years, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).
The new French government led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier has also put enhanced taxes on the wealthy and big businesses on the table as the country faces a big budget deficit.