FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – HOW TO TAX A BILLIONAIRE – AN ADVOCACY TOOL AGAINST TAX PRIVILEGES FOR THE SUPER-RICH GERMANY: WHAT AN ADVOCACY TOOL ADDRESSING THE TAX PRIVILEGES OF THE SUPER-RICH COULD LOOK LIKE In the last thirty years, Germany has seen major tax cuts for the super-rich, including: – abolition of the wealth tax(1997) – lowering of the tax on corporate income(2001, 2008) and the possibility to accumulate profits at holding companies tax-free(2001), leading to a reduction in nominal tax rates on accumulated(i. e. non-distributed) profits from 57 per cent to 30 per cent – a reduction in the top income tax rate from 53 per cent to 45 per cent(2001–2005) In addition, there have been a whole range of additional tax exemptions and special rules, especially for income from real estate investments. Based on an in-depth analy­sis of these development, the German Tax Justice Network (Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit) has calculated the tax rate for a typical billionaire and a typical portfolio of a multi-­millionaire. The results show that for the billionaire(who inherited shares of the car-maker BMW), the tax rate fell from 61 per cent in 1996 to 25.3 per cent in 2023. Similarly, the tax rate on the portfolio of the multi-millionaire is 21 per cent(or 24 per cent when social security is included), while the OECD puts the rate for an average family at 43 per cent(including social security contributions by the employee and the em­ployer). According to estimates, the biggest tax privileges cost USD 80 billion per year(about 10 per cent of all taxes 36