Global minimum tax for multinationals, Piketty: “Scandal that we call it ‘wonderful result’, do they think we’re stupid? I’d like 15% taxes too”

“So in Ireland it goes from 12.5% ​​to 15%: is that a joke?French economist Thomas Piketty European leaders do not share their enthusiasm about the agreement signed in London between the G7 finance ministers to impose a global tax on multinational companies. “I would also like to pay only 15% tax,” comments an author Capital in the twenty-first centuryguest Trento Economy Festival. What if the prime minister Mario Draghi He defines it as a “historic step towards greater equity and social justice for citizens,” one word suffices for the economist at the Paris School of Economics: “scandalHe explains why.” Giving large multinational corporations the privilege of paying 15% tax It means giving them the right to pay less than they should to small and medium-sized enterprises, like most people and the middle class in general,” says Piketty, who jokes and wishes himself such a low tax rate. And again: “If everyone paid 15 percent, that would be fine, but we know that It is not possible if we want transportation, schools and public health. Again, the middle class still funds these things, while we give a discount to those who can afford branch offices in tax havens. In the face of all this talk of a great result so inappropriate, do they consider us stupid? “.

What if the European Commissioner for Economics Paolo Gentiloni Praises the American administration Joe Biden To promote the initiative, Piketty recalls, “EU countries responded to the US proposal for a 21% tax rate, hiding behind the argument of having to put everyone in agreement, knowing already that There was no consensus. A way of saying no to a more courageous proposal than the agreement now signed in Europe.” An agreement that must now await scrutiny by the OECD and the G-20 agreement, and will likely come into operation within a few years. In Trento, the title of the meeting that witnessed the French professor, He is one of the most popular figures of the festival, as a hero, “for a participatory socialism.” In the center is the theme to which he dedicated his most famous books, Inequality and redistribution of wealth. On the sidelines of the meeting, Piketty also commented on the recent proposal of Enrico Letta for review Inheritance tax to allocate the largest income for young people: “An initiative going in the right direction, but I invite Enrico Letta to go further.” According to the economist, there is in fact a need to tax large assets, because “we cannot wait for the billionaires to die and for them to leave their vast fortunes to their children to be able to tax them.” As for the destination of this tax, the €10,000 per eighteen-year proposed by the Democratic Party Secretary “is still very far from the goal of giving everyone the same chances of getting off the ground. I suggested 120,000, I assure you لكم Not even in this way the goal of equal opportunity is achievedBut the economist is convinced that it is “an excellent way to revitalize the Italian economy, which in order to grow needs young people with the resources to invest, innovate and do business.”