PARIS – Governments should open a new front in the international clampdown on tax evasion with a global minimum tax on billionaires, which could raise $250 billion annually, the EU Tax Observatory said on Monday.

If levied, the sum would be equivalent to only 2% of the nearly $13 trillion in wealth owned by the 2,700 billionaires globally, the research group hosted at the Paris School of Economics said.

Currently billionaires’ effective personal tax is often far less than what other taxpayers of more modest means pay because they can park wealth in shell companies sheltering them from income tax, the group said in its 2024 Global Tax Evasion Report.

“In our view, this is difficult to justify because it risks to undermine the sustainability of tax systems and the social acceptability of taxation,” the observatory’s director Gabriel Zucman told journalists.

Billionaires’ personal tax in the United States is estimated to be close to 0.5% and as low as zero in otherwise high-tax France, the Observatory estimated.

Growing wealth inequality in some countries is fueling calls for the richest citizens to bear more of the tax burden as public finances struggle to cope with aging populations, huge financing needs for climate transition and legacy COVID debt.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget included plans for a 25% minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01%, but that proposal has since fallen by the wayside with lawmakers in Washington preoccupied with government shutdown threats and looming funding deadlines.

Though a coordinated international push to tax billionaires could take years, the Observatory pointed to the example of governments’ success in all but ending bank secrecy and reducing opportunities for multinationals to shift profits to low-tax countries.

The 2018 launch of automatic sharing of account information has reduced the amount of wealth held in offshore tax havens by a factor of three, the observatory estimated.

A 2021 agreement between 140 countries will limit multinationals’ scope to reduce tax by booking profits in low-tax countries by setting a global 15% floor on corporate taxation from next year.

“Something that many people thought would be impossible, now we know can actually be done,” Zucman said. “The logical next step is to apply that logic to billionaires, and not only to multinational companies.”

In the absence of a broad international push for a minimum tax on billionaires, Zucman said a “coalition of willing countries” could unilaterally lead the way.

Although the end of banking secrecy and the corporate minimum tax have put an end to decades-long competition between countries on tax rates, numerous opportunities remain to reduce tax bills, the report said.

For example the rich increasingly park wealth in real estate instead of offshore accounts while companies can exploit loopholes in the 15% corporate tax minimum.

Meanwhile, governments are increasingly competing for investment through subsidies even though that is less harmful to their tax bases than competing only on low tax rates, the Observatory said. — Reuters

BEIJING – China views the situation in Gaza as “very serious” with the risk of a large-scale ground conflict rising and the spread of armed conflicts along neighboring borders, Chinese state media said on Monday, citing the country’s Middle East special envoy.

The envoy Zhai Jun, who is visiting the Middle East, said spillover effects in the region and internationally are widening, as conflict along the Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Syrian borders spread, “making the outlook worrisome”.

Zhai called on the international community to be “highly vigilant in this regard” and to take immediate action urging parties concerned to strictly abide by international humanitarian law and avoid a serious humanitarian disaster while putting in “joint efforts to control the situation”.

Zhai also said China is willing to do “whatever is conducive” to promote dialogue, achieve ceasefire and restore peace, as well as to promote the two-state solution and a just and lasting resolution to the conflict, China Central Television said.

Last week, Zhai pinned the cause of the Israel-Gaza crisis on the lack of guarantees for Palestinian rights as he met with his Russian counterpart in Qatar, a go-between in the conflict.

Zhai said China will continue maintaining close communication with the international community, including the Arab countries and will next visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries in the region to further strengthen coordination aimed at ending the crisis.

Prior to his trip, Zhai had phone calls with the foreign ministry heads of the Palestinians, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Norway, as well as with the special representatives at United Nations and European Union.

China has provided and will continue to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Palestinians through the United Nations and via bilateral channels to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis, Zhai added. — Reuters

ZURICH – Switzerland looked set to shift to the right in national elections on Sunday, as concerns about immigration trumped fears about climate change and melting glaciers, though the vote is unlikely to change the make-up of the Swiss government.

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), Switzerland’s biggest political party, increased its share of the vote to 29%, 3.4 percentage points higher than the last election in 2019, according to the final projection by Swiss broadcaster SRF.

The party campaigned on a platform of preventing the country’s population – currently at 8.7 million people – exceeding 10 million.

“We have problems with immigration, illegal immigrants, and problems with the security of energy supply,” said SVP leader Marco Chiesa. “We already have asylum chaos … A population of 10 million people in Switzerland is a topic we really have to solve.”

The projected result means the SVP will increase its number of seats by eight to 61 in the 200-member lower house of parliament, increasing its presence in the chamber where no party has an overall majority.

Rising health costs also looked set to benefit the left-wing Social Democrats (SP). Switzerland’s second-biggest party was poised to increase its share by 0.7 percentage points of the vote to 17.4%, increasing its representation by one to 40 seats.

In contrast, the Greens were expected to see their share of the votes fall by 4 percentage points to 9%, and lose six seats.

“The result means it will be more difficult for progressive issues or issues like the environment and sustainability,” said Cloe Jans from pollsters GFS Bern. “Politicians will feel less pressure from outside to push this agenda in the next four years after this result.”

The outcome is unlikely to change the make-up of Switzerland’s government, the Federal Council, where seven cabinet positions are divided among the top four parties, according to their share of the vote.

“The progressive zeitgeist of the four years ago has disappeared. After four years of crises, with coronavirus and Ukraine, people are more conservative than they were in 2019,” said Michael Hermann, a political analyst at pollsters Sotomo.

Still, he did not think the election would have a major impact on Swiss politics, with big issues like pensions still settled via referendums. — Reuters

Israeli warplanes bombarded areas near three hospitals in the Gaza Strip early on Monday, Palestinian media reported, but it was not immediately clear whether the hospitals themselves suffered damage.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the reports, which said Israel had struck near Gaza City’s Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals and near the Indonesian Hospital, in the enclave’s north.

The director of the Indonesian Hospital told Al Jazeera the Israeli bombardment caused “serious damage and injuries,” without providing details.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the reports. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries at or near the other two hospitals.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Oct. 14 that Israel had ordered them to evacuate Al-Quds hospital. The group said it was not possible to move the sick and wounded. — Reuters

DUBAI – An Iranian Revolutionary Court sentenced two journalists to years in prison for their coverage of the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini last year, state media reported on Sunday.

The death of 22-year-old Amini last September while in the custody of the morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code unleashed months of mass protests across Iran, marking the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical leaders in decades.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA said Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi were sentenced to 13 and 12 years in prison respectively on charges, including collaboration with the U.S. government and acting against national security.

Lawyers for the two women have rejected the charges.

“They received seven years and six years each respectively for collaborating with the hostile U.S. government. Then each five years in prison for acting against the national security and each one year in prison for propaganda against the system,” IRNA reported.

Hamedi was detained after she took a picture of Amini’s parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital where their daughter was lying in a coma and Mohammadi after she covered Amini’s funeral in her Kurdish hometown Saqez, where the protests began.

IRNA said the “issued verdicts” were subject to appeal.

The United States condemned the sentences.

“(They) should never have been jailed, and we condemn their sentences. The Iranian regime jails journalists because it fears the truth,” Deputy Special Envoy for Iran Abram Paley said on social media.

If confirmed, the time the women have already spent at the Evin jail, where most political prisoners are held, would be deducted from the sentences, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.

A statement released by Iran’s intelligence ministry in October last year accused Mohammadi and Hamedi of being agents for the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency.

“There is documented evidence of Hamedi and Mohammadi’s intentional connections with certain entities and individuals affiliated with the U.S. government,” Mizan reported. — Reuters