Gabriel Zucman

Varför miljardärer betalar för lite skatt – och hur vi ändrar på det. Gabriel Zucman är en av världens mest inflytelserika nationalekonomer. I många år har han forskat om skatteflykt och rättvis beskattning. Hans slutsats är tydlig: de superrika – personer med ofattbara förmögenheter – bidrar inte med en rimlig andel till det gemensamma. Det är inte bara ett problem för statsfinanserna, utan också en fråga om grundläggande rättvisa. I februari 2025 röstade den franska nationalförsamlingen för en så kallad Zucmanskatt – en tvåprocentig minimiskatt på de superrikas förmögenheter. Förslaget har sedan dess stått i centrum för en intensiv politisk debatt. I denna bok förklarar Zucman sitt förslag på ett kortfattat och pedagogiskt sätt och visar hur en sådan modell också skulle kunna tillämpas i Sverige. Med nyskrivet förord av författaren samt efterord av Elinor Odeberg, chefsekonom Arena Idé. Översättning: Vanja Södergren

Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, the working-class has been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice is a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation. In crystalline prose, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman dissect the deliberate choices and the sins of indecision that have fuelled the trend: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax-avoidance industry; and most critically, tax competition between nations. They argue it is not too late to change course. Instead of competition, we could choose co-operation, finding ways to create a tax regime that serves universal, democratic ends. The Triumph of Injustice offers a visionary and practical reinvention of taxes for that globalised world.

Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice is a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists who revolutionised the study of inequality, demonstrate how the super-rich pay a lower tax rate than everybody else. In crystalline prose they dissect the deliberate choices and the sins of indecision that have fuelled this trend: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax-avoidance industry and, most critically, tax competition between nations. It is not too late to change course. Instead of competition, we could choose cooperation, finding ways to create a tax regime that serves universal, democratic ends. The Triumph of Injustice offers a visionary and practical reinvention of taxes for that globalised world.

We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth of economic inequality has put the majority of the world's wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer. One much-discussed solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous amount of the world's wealth hidden in tax havens in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world's assets are currently hidden until now. Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world's money held in tax havens. And it's staggering. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution. His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25% there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices. Zucman's work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world's assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.