BRASILIA — An annual 2% levy on fortunes exceeding $1 billion is the starting point for a global discussion on raising the burden on under-taxed billionaires, French economist Gabriel Zucman said.

Mr. Zucman, who founded the independent European Union Tax Observatory, was commissioned by the Brazilian G20 presidency to present a report on the issue for discussion by finance ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies at a meeting in July.

“The goal of this blueprint is to offer a basis for political discussions — to start a conversation, not to end it,” Mr. Zucman wrote in the report released on Tuesday.

“It is for citizens to decide, through democratic deliberation and the vote, how taxation should be carried out.”

Mr. Zucman said during a news conference he hoped that such a tax could materialize in less than nine years, which is the time it took to agree a global minimum tax on multinational corporate profits, already implemented by several countries.

In addition to Brazil — which is Latin America’s largest economy — France, Spain, Colombia, Belgium and the African Union have backed the idea, along with South Africa, which will assume the G20 presidency next year.

However, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said his country sees new components of a global tax agenda with great skepticism, while US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US could not support a global wealth levy.

Mr. Zucman, a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley, said there are different ways to implement the idea, including the billionaire minimum income tax proposed in the US by President Joseph R. Biden, which targets individuals with more than $100 million in wealth.

This tax would subject the entire pre-tax return on wealth for ultra-high-net-worth Americans to a minimum individual tax rate of 25%, irrespective of whether the return comes from dividends, realized capital gains or unrealized gains.

Mr. Zucman wrote that, given observed rates of return, Mr. Biden’s proposal is more ambitious than the 2% international standard, as a 25% minimum tax applied to a gross return of 11.3% is equivalent to a minimum tax of 2.8% on wealth.

Implementing the global rule would raise $200 billion to $250 billion annually in tax revenue from about 3,000 individuals, the economist said, adding that extending the tax to those with over $100 million would generate an additional $100 billion to $140 billion.

The report indicates that from 1987 to 2024, the average wealth of the world’s top 0.0001% richest households has grown by around 7% per year adjusted for inflation, significantly outpacing the global average annual wealth growth rate of 3%.

“Billionaires and the businesses they own have been major beneficiaries of globalization. This raises the question of whether contemporary tax systems manage to distribute these gains appropriately, or instead contribute to concentrating them into a few hands,” Mr. Zucman wrote in the report. — Reuters

SIXTEEN Nobel prize-winning economists signed a letter on Tuesday warning that the US and world economy will suffer if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November.

The jointly signed letter, first reported by Axios, says the economic agenda of US President Joseph R. Biden, a Democrat, is “vastly superior” to Mr. Trump’s, the former Republican president seeking a second term. The economists say Mr. Trump’s economic plans would reignite inflation, in part because of his pledge to impose stiffer tariffs on Chinese imports, which they say will hike prices on many goods bought by US consumers.

“While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump,” the economists state in their letter.

“We believe that a second Trump term would have a negative impact on the US’s economic standing in the world, and a destabilizing effect on the US’s domestic economy.”

The letter was signed by prominent economists including Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, and Sir Angus Deaton, an economic Nobel laureate in 2015.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are locked in a close election race. The Nov. 5 contest will be decided by voters in a handful of battleground states which are closely contested because their voting preferences can swing to Republicans or Democrats.

While headline inflation has slowed in the past two years, many US consumers are still unhappy with the higher prices they have to pay for food, gas and other goods, according to public opinion polls.

Mr. Trump has pledged to impose tariffs on foreign imports, and up to at least 60% on Chinese goods coming into the US, a cost the economists say will be passed on to US consumers in the form of price hikes.

“Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets,” the letter states.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. James Singer, a Biden campaign spokesperson, called Mr. Trump’s economic agenda dangerous.

The US economy will be a major theme in the first presidential debate between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump on Thursday. Mr. Trump blames Mr. Biden for high prices and inflation, while Mr. Biden claims Mr. Trump’s trade policies, including tariffs, will raise inflation. — Reuters

SINGAPORE — Singapore faces greater money laundering and terrorism financing risks than other countries because it is an international finance and business hub, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Wednesday told a meeting of a global financial crime body.

“But we are determined to do what is needed to respond to these risks and safeguard Singapore’s reputation as a trusted financial center,” said Mr. Wong, who is also Singapore’s finance minister, at a Financial Action Task Force (FATF) event.

FATF is a global money laundering and terrorism financing watchdog. Singapore currently holds a two-year FATF presidency until June 30.

On Wednesday, Singapore published a national asset recovery strategy report as part of its efforts to enhance its anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorism financing framework.

“Asset recovery is one of the key priorities of our AML regime,” the home affairs ministry, the finance ministry and the central bank said in the 32-page report.

“We seek to deprive criminals of their illicit gains, thereby removing the financial incentive for laundering their monies in Singapore,” they said in the report.

“We also seek to provide recourse to victims of crime by helping them to recover property and assets lost to criminal activities,” they added.

Between January 2019 and June 2024, Singapore seized S$6 billion ($4.4 billion) linked to criminal and money laundering activities, according to the report.

Out of that amount, S$416 million has been returned to the victims, and S$1 billion has been forfeited to the state, the report said, while the large bulk of the remainder is linked to ongoing investigations or court proceedings.

Last week, Singapore highlighted in a risk assessment report that its banking sector, including wealth management, posed the highest money laundering risk in the city-state.

Singapore last year busted a $2.24-billion money laundering ring run by foreigners, with the last of 10 offenders sentenced on June 10. Those involved had held money in bank accounts in Singapore and converted some into real estate, cars, handbags and jewelry.

With its status as an international financial hub, tax-friendly regime and seen as politically stable, Singapore has long been a haven for ultra-rich foreigners.

It has seen a fresh influx of wealth since 2021 after it became one of the first Asian cities to significantly ease pandemic restrictions.

The number of family offices or one-stop firms that manage the portfolios of the wealthy in the city-state rose to around 1,400 last year from 1,100 a year earlier and around 700 at end-2021, according to government statistics. — Reuters