Chirac to push for international tax to fight poverty

French President Jacques Chirac will put forward ideas for an international tax scheme that would help build a 50-billion-dollar war chest to fight poverty during a 55-nation conference on economic development opening Monday in New York.
Chirac will launch his initiative fortified by the conclusions of a French working group, but the idea is fiercely opposed by the United States.
The 150-page study drafted by the working group of experts is aimed at advancing efforts to reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half between now and 2015, consistent with goals the United Nations adopted in 2000.
Their document suggests that a tax could be imposed on greenhouse gas emissions as well as certain financial transactions, arms sales or multinational corporations.
Other proposed approaches raise the possibility of taxes levied on ships transiting key maritime straits, airline tickets, credit card purchases as well as an international lottery.
"There is a lack of stable and dependable resources for the war on poverty" at a time when 1.2 billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, noted Jean-Pierre Landau, who headed the working group.
The report says ensuring that all sub-Saharan African children go to school will cost three billion dollars over 10 years.
But the authors declined to signal their preferred approach, insisting that each of them is "technically feasible and available" as a "political step."
The group acknowledged that a global consensus on the proposal does not currently exist.
"Opposition even to the principle of an obligatory contribution is strong in many countries," notably the United States, the report said.
Nonetheless most of the 15 authors - senior government officials, economists, business leaders and representatives from international and development groups - insist that their proposal stands a realistic chance of being implemented.
"I am relatively optimistic," said Anne Lauvergeon, head of the nuclear group Areva.
Landau in addition pointed to initiatives that have reduced the debt burden carried by some of the world's poorest nations, a step that several years ago was considered unrealistic.
The experts predicted that at the conference, called by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil, Chile and Spain would put forward similar proposals on an anti-poverty global tax.
France also hopes the idea will be discussed at meetings in early October of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington as well as by the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries.