Gabriel Zucman

And more than that, I think it will happen in other countries.

And eventually it will be, I think the most likely scenario is that it will become, it will happen a bit like the creation of the progressive income tax happened at the beginning of the 20th century.

So it was an international movement.

You know, for centuries, the way that we did taxation was

extremely unfair.

It was taxes were only based on consumption, things like salt, you know, and commodities.

And so it was a heavy burden for the poor and the rich didn't have to pay taxes.

And so then there is this revolution beginning of 20th century where different countries say, no, no, look, we are going to have a progressive income tax with higher rates for higher incomes.

The UK actually was a leader

because it happened in 1909 with the famous people's budget of Lloyd George, where in 1909, Lloyd George says, okay, we are going to introduce a progressive income tax.

There was already an income tax in the UK, but at a flat rate, same rate for everybody since 1843.

And in 1909, people's budget, there's a 2.5% super tax

on top of the regular income tax that's introduced for the 10,000 wealthiest people in the UK.

And that's the birth of the progressive income tax.

And France did the same in 1914.

The US did the same in 1913.

Many countries kind of did it at roughly the same time.

It was not an international agreement, but it was just a common realization that

win more money for workers' pensions, for many things.

And the way we do things at the moment is totally unfair.