Brazil’s wealthy increased their share by 2.7 percent last year, accounting for over half of the country’s wealth.
According to Credit Suisse Group AG, the percentage of wealth owned by the richest 1% in countries such as the United States, China, Brazil, and India increased as a result of the epidemic, fuelled by attempts to mitigate the virus’s impacts.
Brazil’s wealthy increased their share by 2.7 percent last year, accounting for over half of the country’s wealth, the greatest of the ten nations included in the Swiss bank’s Global Wealth Report.
According to a research released Tuesday by Credit Suisse, the richest 1% in eight of the ten countries increased their share of the wealth last year, owing largely to interest rate decreases following the Covid-19 epidemic.
The research emphasised both significant growth in fortunes throughout the world—the world’s 500 wealthiest persons added $1.8 trillion to their total net worth last year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—and growing inequalities.
“The highest wealth categories remain generally untouched by decreases in overall economic activity, and, more crucially, they have benefitted from the impact of reduced interest rates on share prices and property values,” according to the research.
According to Credit Suisse, the Gini coefficient—a broader measure of inequality that incorporates increases at both ends of the spectrum—increased in all of the ten countries studied during 2020, with the exception of the United States, where it decreased modestly. Global household wealth was $418 trillion at the end of 2020, up 7.4 percent from the previous year, according to the report.
Rapid wealth accumulation, inequality, and government deficits are fueling global efforts to tax the rich.
President Joe Biden of the United States wants to raise capital-gains taxes and the sums that rich heirs pay when they inherit assets.
In December, an independent committee in the United Kingdom proposed a one-time wealth tax to generate around 260 billion pounds ($361 billion), while other countries, like Argentina and Bolivia, have already raised cash in the last year through measures aimed at the wealthy.
