IMF: Rich must pay for Covid debt binge
THE wealthy should pay higher taxes to help deal with a Covid borrowing binge that has pushed global debts to a record £ 64 trillion, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday.
The Washington- based watchdog said the cost of protecting households, jobs and businesses has climbed to a ‘staggering’ £9 trillion, blowing a huge hole in the public finances of countries around the world.
The IMF said global debt has swelled to 100pc of world’s entire annual output – or around £64 trillion – as a result of the crisis, and it set to spiral in the coming years.
The watchdog’s head of fiscal policy Vitor Gaspar said officials should ultimately ‘adopt measures to improve tax compliance and consider higher taxes for the more affluent groups and highly profitable firms’. He added: ‘The ensuing revenues would help pay for critical services, such as health and social safety nets, during a crisis that has disproportionately hurt the poorer segments of society.’
The IMF stressed that most advance countries that can borrow freely are likely to be able to stabilise their debts by the middle of the decade without resorting to austerity or tax hikes in the short- term. This is largely because they can exploit ultralow interest rates which makes borrowing cheap.
But the suggestion that some governments will need to increase ‘progressive taxation’ to help cover the cost of the pandemic in due course will fire up debate over how the coronavirus crisis will be paid for.
The watchdog’s intervention rankled with Tory MPs.
Andrew Bridgen said: ‘The top 1pc of earners already pay 30pc of taxes – so they are the ones that will get us out of this mess. You’ll never make poor people richer by making rich people poorer.’
Public borrowing in the UK is expected to hit £350bn this year and the national debt has just topped £2 trillion for the first time.
Options considered by the Treasury have included increasing capital gains tax on profits made from selling assets such as second homes and shares, and hiking corporation tax on businesses.
The IMF predicted the UK’s debt will grow to be far bigger than the size of the economy in the coming years – hitting 117pc in 2025. This would be more than twice the debt level of Germany, but still below many countries including Spain, Italy, France, the US and Japan. Britain’s national debt recently hit 100pc of GDP, the highest as a share of national income for almost 60 years.
A separate report by Parisbased think tank the OECD warned Britain’s national debt will hit 120pc of GDP in the coming years – which equates to around £2.4 trillon. It warned debt levels will become unsustainable unless action is taken.
Alvaro Pereira at the OECD said; ‘Fiscal prudence is something that, after the pandemic is over, will have to be addressed.’
Chief economist Laurence Boone said a combination of Covid and the prospect of a No Deal Brexit has made the outlook for the UK economy as ‘exceptionally uncertain’.
The OECD predicted the UK economy will shrink 10.1pc this year, bouncing back by 7.6pc next year. Official figures published on Tuesday showed the UK’s unemployment rate has risen from 4.1pc to 4.5pc over the summer – the highest level in three years.