Taxing the billionaires

A cartoon by Miroslav Kemel 11 years ago in MFD showed ČSSD Chair Jiří Paroubek at a campaign rally. "We have an easy recipe for creating a thousand millionaires," he said. "Out of one billionaire." A similar cartoon today would picture Labor Min. Jana Maláčová of ČSSD saying sarcastically, "The cabinet agreed today with representatives of the billionaires that raising taxes on their billions in income would slow down the economy. The interests of this endangered group must be protected. In a tough and uncompromising way." This gets to the very crux of the income-inequality issue. The time has never been so ripe for going after the oligarchs by imposing a tax on their assets, but who's going to do it? Billionaire PM Andrej Babiš is above 30% in the polls and is in bed with the Communists, with their 5-8%. Then there's Billionaire No. 1. No, Maláčová won't get her tax revolution anytime soon, but that doesn't mean she won't stir up some solid clash tension in the meanwhile.