Wealth tax Calls for end to 'fiscal favours' for super-rich gain traction

Calls for higher taxes on the super-rich are gaining traction and even conservative governments are joining in.

- Phillip Inman

In Rome, ministers in Giorgia Meloni's rightwing administration have doubled a "flat tax" on foreign income from €100,000 to €200,000 (about £85,500 to £171,000) that a previous government brought in to attract wealthy investors.

Italy's low tax on foreigners and the income earned abroad did its job after 1,186 rich individuals adopted the country as their tax residency, but protests this year showed it was out of line with the prevailing mood.

Its economy minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, said Italy was now against the idea of countries competing with each other to offer "fiscal favours" to the wealthy.

This was weeks after 19 former heads of state - including the former prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard and Dominique de Villepin, who was prime minister during Jacques Chirac's presidency - signed a joint letter calling for heavier taxes on wealth, and a meeting of G20 finance ministers agreed that more needed to be done to tax the global elite.

While Giorgetti didn't mention the UK, another prompt for the U-turn was Rishi Sunak's partial abolition of tax breaks for wealthy foreign residents, known as non-domiciled status. Italy's favourable treatment became an embarrassment for Meloni, and even more so when Keir Starmer promised an incoming Labour government would take a tougher stance on non-doms.

The rhetoric from President Joe Biden has also helped the cause of a global wealth tax. The US president made an attack on the super-wealthy a central theme of his re-election campaign before stepping aside for Kamala Harris.