The richest 0.1% hide more than half the wealth of the poorest

The amount of untaxed wealth hidden in foreign tax havens by the world’s richest 0.1% exceeds the combined wealth of the world’s poorest 4.1 billion people, an Oxfam analysis shows.

A report released on Thursday highlights that ten years after the Panama Papers were leaked, elites around the world continue to use the complex international financial system to generate vast amounts of wealth that cannot be accessed by the public and taxes.

Speaking to Euronews, Christian Hallum, head of taxation at Oxfam, said that the super rich are looking for “seas of wealth” and warned that this is not just about bookkeeping, but about “power and impunity”.

According to a UK-based international group of more than 20 independent NGOs, about $3.55 trillion (€3.08tn) in private wealth remained untaxed and unreported in foreign accounts.

This total is almost the size of the entire UK economy and more than double the combined GDP of the 44 least developed countries.

The abundance of these hidden assets is very obvious, as the top 0.1% hold almost 80% of all unpaid foreign currency, representing approximately $2.84 trillion (€2.47tn).

Within this group, a tiny fraction of the top 0.01% makes $1.77 trillion (€1.53tn).

Hallum explained to Euronews that the business model of tax havens is still strong because “very rich people have a way of hiring wealth managers and accountants to come up with amazing ideas to avoid taxes”.

Although total foreign exchange wealth reached an estimated $13.25 trillion (€11.51tn) in 2023, representing 12.48% of global GDP, the untaxed share is estimated to have stabilized at around 3.2% since then.

Oxfam is now urging the UK government and other G7 leaders to introduce a permanent and progressive wealth tax on the super rich to replace these lost earnings.

The organization argues that such funds are essential for addressing global poverty, supporting economic transformation and strengthening fragile social structures.

Euronews asked Hallum if a wealth tax is the solution to this problem given that the very rich use offshore services to avoid all taxes.

The head of taxation at Oxfam responded that “wealth tax does not solve the problem of foreign ownership, but when the richest 0.1% have 80% of all wealth that is not taxed abroad we believe that our loss for tax havens cannot be separated from the issue of extreme inequality”.

“If we really want to get serious about stopping this type of business we must increase financial transparency, but we must also begin to deal with the extreme inequality that drives the demand for services that tax havens provide. That is why we need a wealth tax for the very rich,” Hallum concluded.

Without structural changes to close the remaining gaps and a strategy of global cooperation, advocates warn that the coastal system will continue to act as a key security for the world’s richest at the expense of many people.

The push for the global tax framework

A major obstacle in the fight against tax evasion is the uneven implementation of the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) system.

Although 126 governments have signed up to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) since last year, including major jurisdictions such as Singapore and the British Virgin Islands, many countries in the Global South are still excluded.

Hallum told Euronews that the need for “harmonisation” is a major obstacle for developing countries, as they have to set up complex systems to identify beneficial owners and transfer information to other countries before they can access information about their citizens’ assets abroad.

“Developing the necessary mechanisms to transfer that information from financial institutions to the appropriate authorities is a very difficult task for the most financially developed countries, and in many developing countries it represents an impossible task,” the expert explained.

Hallum also gave the example of Ghana, which signed the CRS in 2014 but only got the light in 2022 after spending an estimated $1 million (€862,800) to build the necessary capacity.

This technical and financial burden often prevents cash-strapped systems from accessing valuable information that could help them recover lost tax revenue.

A persistent crackdown on tax evasion has accelerated change in tax regulation around the world.

In November 2024, the member states of the United Nations adopted the terms of reference for the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.

Formal negotiations began in early 2025 and are expected to continue until 2027, with the aim of creating a more inclusive system than the current OECD-led framework.

Hallum noted that many governments in the Global South have been more vocal about increasing transparency than their peers in the Global North, in part because offshore wealth tends to flow to the wealthiest countries.

In addition to the wealth tax, Hallum explained that Oxfam is calling for a global property registry to map beneficial owners across regions and the opening of public names to “break up companies and trusts” that hide the sale of real estate and other assets.

Hallum told Euronews that these measures, together with increased investment in the tax system, will build the “information infrastructure” needed to make tax evasion difficult and ensure that the very rich contribute fairly to the communities in which they work.

European figures

Although Oxfam’s analysis focuses on global figures, the Atlas of the Offshore World provides a different look at offshore wealth, not just offshore funds, and allows for a European perspective.

This effort by the EU Tax Observatory and the Norwegian Center for Tax Research was compiled using data from Gabriel Zucman and other economists.

Estimates suggest that foreign exchange remains high across the continent, with Greece holding the largest share of capital in its economy among EU members, at around 80% of its GDP.

In addition, Greece loses 47% of corporate income tax, the highest in Europe, followed by Germany at 29% and Estonia at 24%.

France and the UK round out the top 5 both losing around 16%.

Most of the Greek assets are reportedly held in Switzerland which remains the main destination for foreign wealth along with Luxembourg, Cyprus and the Channel Islands.