FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – HOW TO TAX A BILLIONAIRE – AN ADVOCACY TOOL AGAINST TAX PRIVILEGES FOR THE SUPER-RICH Figure 15 Effective tax rate of the Argentine wealth tax of the top decile over time 2.5 Effective Tax Rate (%) 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0 2014 Source: Grondona et al., 2024 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 ARGENTINE BILLIONAIRES AND THEIR TAXATION According to Forbes, there were only five Argentine billion­aires with a total wealth of USD 12.8 billion in 2023. A pro­ject entitled“Los ricos de Argentina” lists 16 families with companies operating in many different sectors. Another study by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung looks at the phenom­enon of shifting profits to Uruguay(Gaggero y Zanotti, 2023). It spotlights four Uruguayan companies that are part of Argentine-owned groups. One of them belongs to one of the five Argentine billionaires listed by Forbes. Be­sides the problem of profit-shifting, this example reveals several problematic exemptions, including reduced wealth tax rates for company shares and the exemption from the wealth tax for rural real estate. According to the study, in 2021 the Uruguayan subsidiary listed 93 per cent of turn­over and 98 per cent of the profit for the whole group and was completely exempted from taxation. SIGNIFICANT TAX REFORMS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAXES ON THE SUPER-RICH The ISBP was created in 1991. According to tax data, the percentage of the population subject to this tax has never exceeded 2 per cent. The tax burden of the ISBP increased from 0.34 per cent of GDP in 2004 to 0.51 per cent in 2022, registering a minimum of 0.10 per cent in 2018 and a maximum of 0.76 per cent in 2020. Law 25.585 from 2002 created an alternative schedule tax rate on the hold­ing of shares and stakes in companies that brought the rate for these assets to 0.50 per cent, which was reduced to 0.25 per cent for the tax periods 2016 to 2018, rising again to 0.50 per cent for tax periods 2019 onwards. As described above, in 2022 approximately 19 per cent of as­sets declared fell under this schedule tax rate. In 2018, ru­ral real estate was exempted from ISBP. From 2019 on­wards, the rate for assets located abroad has reached a maximum bracket of 2.25 per cent, based on Law 27541 on public emergency, in cases where taxpayers do not re­patriate at least 5 per cent of the assets, in which case the scale for assets in the country applies, reaching a maxi­mum rate of 1.75 per cent(MECON, 2023). From 2021 on­wards, exemptions for financial assets will be added to promote investment in domestic financial assets(Law 27638 of 2021). BRAZIL: WHAT A LOOK AT TAX PRIVILEGES CAN TELL US ABOUT A TAX REFORM TARGETING THE SUPER-RICH  17 The Brazilian Country Example is a summary of a more com­prehensive country case study by Bottega/ Resende(2024). BASIC FACTS – Income inequality: the richest 10 per cent appropri­ate 53.7 per cent, while the statistics for the top 1 per cent and 0.1 per cent are even more startling: they in­dicate a concentration of 24.6 per cent(almost a quar­ter) and 12.1 per cent of national personal income, re­spectively(Bottega et al., 2021); 17 Remark: The country case study on Brazil contains a detailed analy­sis of income inequality and was enriched with an analysis of the ­super-rich by Christoph Trautvetter. 32