According to a new Oxfam analysis, the top 1% of Indians held more than 40.5% of the country’s total wealth in 2021.
According to the research, there were 166 billionaires in the nation in 2022, up from 102 in 2020.
In the meantime, it continued, the underprivileged in India “cannot afford even basic essentials to survive.”
To address this “obscene” inequality, the charity urged India’s finance minister to impose a wealth tax on the very wealthy. According to the analysis, more than 40% of the money generated in India between 2012 and 2021 went to just 1% of the population. While only 3% trickled down to the lowest 50%. This underlined the stark inequality in wealth distribution in the country.
Gautam Adani, the richest person in India, saw a 46% increase in fortune in 2022. The aggregate wealth of the top 100 Indians reached $660 billion.
According to Bloomberg’s wealth index, Mr. Adani was the second-richest person in the world in 2022. He also came in first place among those whose fortune increased the most globally during the year.
Middle class and poor suffer the most:
According to Oxfam, the country’s poor and middle class pay higher taxes than its wealthy citizens.
According to the report, the lower 50% of the population contributed roughly 64% of the nation’s total goods and services tax. The top 10% contributed just 4%. The wealthy currently benefited from tax breaks, reduced corporate taxes, and other incentives.
Is there any solution to the problem?
The organization encouraged the finance minister to include progressive tax measures. Which includes a wealth tax in the 2019 budget in order to address this disparity.
According to the analysis, a 2% tax on the entire net worth of India’s billionaires would provide for the malnourished population’s food needs for the following three years.
The National Health Mission, India’s largest healthcare Programme, can be funded for more than 1.5 years with 1% wealth tax.
According to Oxfam, taxes on the top 100 Indian billionaires at 2.5% or the top 10 Indian billionaires at 5% would almost entirely pay the cost of re-enrolling an estimated 150 million children in school.
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