The Nobility of Tax: Shared Wealth, Shared Future

Walter Salles, the filmmaker behind Central do Brasil, is not just a storyteller—he’s also heir to one of Brazil’s largest fortunes. When someone like him publicly supports taxing the super-rich, it’s more than symbolic. It’s a call to sanity in a world that too often confuses wealth with virtue and hoarding with progress.

In Brazil, the six richest billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population combined. This is not just inequality—it is structural injustice, baked into our tax code, our real estate markets, and our very concept of meritocracy. For decades, ordinary Brazilians have been told that austerity is the price of development while fortunes pile up in offshore accounts and untaxed inheritances.

The idea of taxing the super-rich is not about revenge, envy, or even radical ideology. It’s about recalibrating the social contract—the understanding that those who benefit most from a society should also contribute the most to its well-being. It’s about building a country where success doesn’t come at the expense of public health, education, or basic dignity for millions.

A Fraction That Feeds Futures

A modest wealth tax—say, 1% on fortunes above 100 million reais—would barely register in the lives of billionaires. It wouldn’t take their yachts or private jets. It wouldn’t destroy their portfolios. What it would do is build schools in Pará, fund hospitals in the Sertão, digitize libraries in the periphery of São Paulo, and strengthen a social safety net that has been stretched to the point of rupture.

It is an enrichment not just for the many—but even for the few. Because true wealth is not isolation in gated compounds, but thriving communities where public space is beautiful, where culture circulates, and where hope is not a private commodity.

Giving More, Losing Nothing

Many ultra-rich fear that taxation means losing control or losing power. But imagine the inverse: the moral clarity of contribution, the legacy of nation-building. Philanthropy, as noble as it can be, is no substitute for structural justice. Taxes are not punishment—they are participation.

For those who already have more than they could ever spend, giving back doesn’t mean losing. It means gaining the chance to live in a more coherent world, where children don’t have to cross rivers on foot to reach school, where elders don’t die waiting for treatment, and where the arts can flourish beyond gated patronage.

It’s not naïve to say the rich could feel better this way. It’s rational. Because a society where everyone thrives is not only more stable—it’s more beautiful. And for those with a conscience, it’s also more bearable.

The Time Is Now

This is not about targeting the rich. It’s about including them in the promise of a better Brazil. If Walter Salles can take that stand, so can others. Justice is not a threat to prosperity. It’s the only way to make it real.