International

From 1st January, VAT on groceries has been raised from 6% to 9%. For people on low and average incomes, as well as for small shops, this has hit hard. At the same time, people's energy bills, health insurance premiums, rent and child care costs are all on the rise. This has to change. SP leader Lilian Marijnissen has a proposal that would help put this right. She wants to see a tax on millionaires, which would enable the VAT increase to be reversed. Support for her proposal turns out to be widespread. 

The proposed tax would take the form of an additional 2% charge on capital above €1 million. For everyone whose wealth is below this value, there would be no change, as Lilian Marijnissen explains. “We'll tax the superrich a little more and at the same time drop the unfair VAT increase. That's just and furthermore it's badly needed.”  

A survey by leading polling agency Maurice de Hond found that more than 70% of the population support Marijnissen's proposal to make millionaires pay more so that the VAT increase can be reversed. Notably, a clear majority of almost every party's voters backs the idea, with the sole exception being the neoliberal VVD. Even in the case of the VVD, however, half are supportive. 

In other countries too, demands are growing for the superrich to be made to pay fair taxes. US Democrat and socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently called for a top rate of 70% to be imposed on the richest, while Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman issued a call at the World Economic Forum last month in Davos for the superrich to pay their taxes, a call that echoed across the world.