Tax me, I’m a millionaire

Well, I’m actually not. But there are a few out there and they’ve ganged together to create Millionaires for Humanity. The aim of this group is to get governments to tax them more.

High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) and Ultra High Net Work Individauls (UHNWI) are those two groups who are served by private banks and great party organisers.

Here’s what their manifesto says:

To Our Fellow Global Citizens:

As Covid-19 strikes the world, millionaires like us have a critical role to play in healing our world. No, we are not the ones caring for the sick in intensive care wards. We are not driving the ambulances that will bring the ill to hospitals. We are not restocking grocery store shelves or delivering food door to door. But we do have money, lots of it. Money that is desperately needed now and will continue to be needed in the years ahead, as our world recovers from this crisis.

It rambles on. You can read it.

Who are these people?

There’s a hundred of them so far, including guys like Richard Curtis (producer of great films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and founder of Comic Relief), Abigail and Tim Disney (grand niece and nephew of Walt Disney), Jerry Greenfield (co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice creams), Michael Rothman (CEO of Fatherly)  and Bonnie Rothman (President of Company B), Eric Shoenberg (the guitar guy) and more.

It’s really laudable.

It’s really worthy.

It’s a great thing …

… it’s also a bit funny due to the language used. The Financial Times picked up on this and pointed out:

After a few more lines about ordinary people who aren’t like them, they urge governments to whack them with immediate, substantial and permanent increases: “So please tax us. Tax us. It is the right choice. It is the only choice,” before concluding with the supposedly profound observation that “humanity is more important than our money” ...

… their sincere plea has been wrapped up in a tone so sententious, so self-reverential, as to open the entire exercise to mockery ... Instead of saying, for example, that “millionaires like us have a critical role in healing the world”, they might have opted for the less egotistical “millionaires like us must step up and play our part”.

I kind of agree but, on the other hand, feel it’s more interesting to work out the numbers.

There are a total of 46.8 million millionaires worldwide and they collectively own approximately $158.3 trillion. That’s a lot of taxable wealth. In fact, it’s half the wealth on Planet Earth, so the language may be funny but …

… nah.

Whenever governments increase tax on the rich, they just run off to Switzerland or somewhere similar. Ah well, nice idea guys.