Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, hosting the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro from Monday, will try to progress plans to tax the world's richest billionaires, who often use complex loopholes to avoid tax.

At a July meeting of G20 finance ministers in Rio, the world's wealthiest nations agreed to start a "dialogue on fair and progressive taxation, including of ultra-high-net-worth individuals," despite fierce resistance from the United States and within Germany's now collapsed coalition government.

While the world's growing geopolitical issues — the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts, the prospect of a second Trump term in the US and China trade — are expected to dominate the two-day summit, Lula hopes to move the wealth tax plan forward as the money raised from billionaires will help boost other pressing global issues.

Devised by French economist Gabriel Zucman, the plan would introduce an annual tax of 2% on the total net worth of the uberwealthy — not just their annual income. This would include real estate assets, corporate shareholdings and other investments. Zucman estimates that the top 0.01% of the population pay an effective tax rate of just 0.3% of their wealth.

The new levy could raise up to $250 billion (€237 billion) a year from the nearly 2,800 billionaires globally, who have a combined net worth estimated at some $13.5 trillion, according to the Forbes Richest World's Billionaires List. The funds raised would be used to tackle........

© Deutsche Welle