Gabriel Zucman

But they are not taxed also at the holding level, and so they go tax-free.

And this is happening everywhere.

Above a certain level of wealth,

This type of tax avoidance is systematic.

Where tax havens have played a very important role for the very rich is because they've allowed a race to the bottom with corporate taxation.

You can view the corporate tax as a kind of minimum tax for the super rich.

Even if they don't pay taxes themselves, personally, their businesses have to pay company taxes, corporate taxes.

But with the rise of international tax competition, with the rise of offshore tax havens, we've seen countries one after another cutting their corporate tax rates.

And so that has...

contributed to a boom in company profits and hence an increase in the valuation of those firms.

Getting back to your question, what is at the heart of the enormous boom in the wealth of the super rich?

I think this kind of decline in capital taxation and corporate taxation in particular has been a key reason.

And so the idea here is very simple.

The idea is that...

Today, the billionaires pay almost nothing.

That's not OK.

Right.

So I think we can all agree with the idea that there should be a minimum.

There should be a floor.

If you're extremely rich, you shouldn't be allowed to pay zero tax.