Brazil and Mexico have the most billionaires in Latin America, but earn the least from estate taxes, according to a new study from a regional economic group.
Brazil tops the billionaires list with 30, followed by Mexico, with 11, said last month’s report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mexico’s Carlos Slim is the richest in the world according to the annual Forbes magazine ranking.
Yet between 2005 and 2007, Mexico earned just 0.18 percent of its GDP from estate taxes, and Brazil only 0.44 percent, according to the report on economic elites, inequality and taxation.
That put them behind several other Latin American countries with far fewer billionaires, such as Colombia, which has three billionaires and earned 0.54 percent from estate taxes.
And income disparities are vast.
More than 2 billion people live on less than US$2 a day worldwide, “revealing the extreme disparities in the global economy,” study authors Andres Solimano and Juan Pablo Jimenez wrote.
The sharp concentration of income and wealth in the hands of a few “reduces the legitimacy of capitalism,” they said.
The wide gap between the haves and the have-nots also undermines democracy, the authors added, because “winning an election requires financing, giving an advantage to those who have resources.”
Earlier this year, the UN called for a “billionaires tax” of 1 percent that could raise more than US$40 billion a year, as part of a package of global taxes that could help raise hundreds of billions of dollars for development.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six