Leigh Sales questioning Adam Bandt’s 6% tax increase for billionaires with the retort that the ultra-rich will be less inclined to give charitably is way off the mark.
According to yet-to-be-released research from Dr Jeremiah Brown, Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact at UNSW, last year the top-50 philanthropic donations totalled approximately $964 million; of which, only 15 of the donations came from people in the top-200 wealthiest Australians.
Brown says that “The rates of donation are greatly outstripped by the growth in wealth for those at the top: From 2015 to 2021, the wealthiest 200 Australians have seen their wealth grow by 145%, from $195.9 billion to $479.7 billion (per AFR Rich List).”
Overall wealth increased for the top-200 by an average of 13.1% from the 2020 AFR list to the 2021 AFR list.
Callum Foote was a reporter for Michael West Media for four years.