197. The Billionaire Tax Debate (Gabriel Zucman)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The wealth of billionaires has exploded. It is the most important challenge in the 21st century. The proposal is for people who have more than 100 million pounds. You should be paying a minimum amount of tax equal to 2% of your wealth.
There are so many assumptions you're making. I'm sorry. What are the risks? What are the costs? What are the benefits of this proposal?
How does Gabriel Zucman define the problem of billionaire wealth and inequality?
If they move, we'll keep taxing them. Period.
You're not an expert on UK law. You're not an expert on the UK budgetary process. So then what is the benefit? What is the problem you're trying to solve?
It is this regressivity problem that I'm trying to fix. So it's a question of fairness? It's a basic question of equality. before the law. And the fact that they might threaten to leave, that shouldn't serve as an excuse. They don't pay income tax on that income.
They pay corporation tax.
No, the holding companies don't pay corporation tax.
What sort of tax do they pay? That's the whole problem. Listen, I agree with you. It is disgusting that these people are so wealthy. They don't need the money. So why is no party doing it? Is the message we want to pass to the world, if you move to Britain, you're trapped. We're going to tax you for the next 15 years of your life.
Most people, they want equality before the law. A lot of the people you're talking about, they feel that because of the wealth that they have, they actually have more power than people with power. Is it not possible that actually it's going to take another revolution before this gets fixed? This episode is presented by IG. Now, as a listener of this podcast, you're no doubt acutely aware of the world's unstable political landscape and how it can affect your money. Exactly.
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Welcome to The Residence Politics Leading with me, Rory Stewart.
And me, Alistair Campbell. Now, a lot of our listeners and viewers seem to like it when we have left-wing economists with big ideas on leading. We've had Kate Raworth. Yanis Varoufakis and Gary Stevenson, who ever since has been nagging us to get on our guest today, Gabriel Zucman. And so have many of our listeners and viewers too. So here we are, we're in Paris and here he is. He's the professor at Berkeley in the Paris School of Economics. He's best known for his work on exposing tax havens. and also for a proposal for a wealth tax, or as he prefers to call it, minimum income tax guarantee. And when we've discussed these ideas before, I share passionately the belief that inequality is a massive problem and potentially democracy-threatening problem, but I worry about the how,
of implementation. And Rory is perhaps even more skeptical and worries even about the why. But we go into it with open minds. And we are very happy to be here with you.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming to Paris.
To begin, we're sitting here in a bunch of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and you are one of the products of this extraordinary French educational system, but also being in Britain and the States. Can you locate first how much you think
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:37
2
How does Gabriel Zucman define the problem of billionaire wealth and inequality?
0:37–30:57
3
What is the California billionaire tax and how effective could a one‑off wealth levy be?
30:57–39:59
4
How should ‘wealth’ be measured for a wealth tax and can governments accurately value assets?
39:59–51:33
5
How can tax administrations prevent concealment and pre‑populate wealth returns?
51:33–1:10:22
Speakers
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