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This text initially appeared on Business Insider.
A enterprise tycoon is taking an sudden stance on taxes.
Walgreens Boots Alliance’s government vice chairman, John Driscoll, penned a letter asking lawmakers within the US and overseas to tax the rich. Driscoll echoed the pleas of entrepreneurs, an heiress, and activists in his demand to save lots of the “quickly diminishing American Dream.”
Because the grandchild of Irish immigrants, Driscoll labeled himself as a beneficiary of the American Dream — the idea that anybody within the US can obtain success and prosperity by working laborious.
The exec signed an open letter from the Proud to Pay Extra marketing campaign addressing the leaders gathered at Davos 2024, an annual assembly held in Switzerland that is attended by CEOs, authorities officers, enterprise elites, and members of the media.
“On this spirit, I name on nationwide and worldwide lawmakers to do no matter it takes to tax rich individuals like me,” Driscoll wrote.
However, taxing the mega-rich is not a simple feat within the US. A lot of Driscoll’s rich friends do not share his views on taxation.
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel informed reporters in 2023 that price range cuts through the years made it laborious to maintain up with the “sophisticated strategies the wealthiest tax taxpayers used to cover their revenue and evade their paying their justifiable share of taxes.”
In its crackdown on these excessive earners, the IRS managed to get simply $122 million in lacking taxes from 100 millionaires as of October.
Final summer season, billionaire Elon Musk — also called the richest man on the earth — responded to a publish from President Joe Biden in regards to the super-wealthy “paying their justifiable share” together with his personal evaluation.
“I agree that we must always make elaborate tax-avoidance schemes unlawful, however performing upon that will upset loads of donors, so we are going to see phrases, however no motion,” Musk wrote in June.
Two years prior, Musk spoke out in opposition to a tax plan that will’ve price him about $10 billion yearly.
Analysts have proposed taxes that they are saying would tremendously profit the overall inhabitants. Researchers on the EU Tax Observatory stated {that a} 2% tax on all of the world’s billionaires would elevate near $250 billion per yr.
Driscoll has additionally been an advocate for higher minimum wage. Whereas he was CEO of home-health firm CareCentrix, the corporate raised its minimal wage to $15 an hour.
In his tax letter, Driscoll cited a report from the Financial Coverage Institute that CEOs made 399 instances as a lot as a typical worker in 2021.
“If our world leaders wish to stop millionaires and billionaires and their kids from turning into the unintentional aristocracy, they want to make sure that these taxes work as significant and efficient checks on dynastic wealth,” Driscoll wrote.
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