In its latest report, aptly titled ‘Survival of the Richest’, rights group Oxfam International has said that the world’s richest 1 per cent have grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020. This is almost twice the money earned by the rest of the global population. The findings for India are equally stark: the richest 1 per cent in the country now own more than 40 per cent of its total wealth, while the bottom half of the populace shares only 3 per cent. The well-off have kept minting money even during the Covid years. From the outbreak of the pandemic to November 2022, billionaires in India have seen their moolah go up by 121 per cent or Rs 3,608 crore per day.
The report, which comes a fortnight before the presentation of the Union Budget for the 2023-24 financial year, has sought a systemic and wide-ranging increase in taxation of the super-rich to ‘claw back crisis gains driven by public money and profiteering’. Oxfam has also urged the Finance Minister to introduce one-off solidarity wealth taxes and windfall taxes. In the 2022-23 Budget, the FM had announced pruning of the surcharge on corporate tax from 12 per cent to 7 per cent, besides extending the concessional corporate tax rate of 15 per cent for another year for newly incorporated manufacturing companies.
The ever-widening rich-poor gulf calls for reviewing the taxation system for the moneybags. This is a tough task for a government that is perceived to be pro-corporate, At the same time, pro-poor policies are needed to effectively achieve poverty alleviation. According to the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022, over 41 crore people were pulled out of poverty in India in 15 years, starting from 2005-06. This is a heartening development, but the job is only half done as India still accounts for the largest population of poor citizens. The world’s fifth largest economy must make greater efforts to reduce various forms of inequality including pay disparity between male and female workers to ensure equitable growth.