S. African Wealth Tax Could Raise $10.7 Billion, Study Shows
- Richest 1% of population own 55% of personal wealth in country
- Proposed tax would be annual and range between 3% and 7%
South Africa is one of the world’s most unequal nations, a legacy of the apartheid system of racial discrimination that disadvantaged the Black majority.
Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
An annual wealth tax on the net worth of South Africa’s richest people could raise as much as 160 billion rand ($10.7 billion) and would narrow inequality in a nation where the most affluent 1% of the population own 55% of personal wealth, a study showed.
The study, carried out by groups including the World Inequality Lab of which Thomas Piketty is co-director, assessed personal wealth in South Africa and proposed a range of taxes on net wealth of above 3.82 million rand, or the top 1% of the population.