They are nearly 200 super rich to launch an original appeal, on the sidelines of the forum in Davos, Switzerland.
In an open letter sent to the participants, these big fortunes from 13 countries ask to be taxed more.
"Tax me and tax people like me", urges one of the signatories, British millionaire Phil White, who considers that wealth inequality "is fragmenting the world" and would consider himself "very happy to pay more taxes ".
"If I were on minimum wage and I called for taxation of the richest, few people would listen to me," laughs the 71-year-old engineer by training who made his fortune thanks to the sale of a consulting company to a private equity group a few years ago.
Among the signatories, there is the American actor Mark Ruffalo or Abigail Disney, one of the heirs of the Disney empire.
Wealth inequality is widening
Wealth inequality has soared over the past ten years, the NGO Oxfam worried in a report published at the opening of the annual Swiss meeting on Monday.
Out of $100 of wealth created, $54.4 went into the pockets of the top 1%, while 70 cents went to the bottom 50%, she found, also advocating for increased taxation billionaires in order to halve the number by 2030.
At a time when philanthropy is very fashionable among the very wealthy, like the pledges made by billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, the Briton judges that this approach is "a step in the right direction" but that "it is not at all the right answer" to reduce inequalities because it is much less effective than taxation.
Moreover, "some do it just for image reasons", he believes, adding that the public must realize that "philanthropy is sometimes simply hiding behind a sheet of respectability in front of the public".
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