Malaysians are battling a brutal cost-of-living squeeze nowadays, taking on side hustles or hunting cheaper foods as “price warriors” to scrape by.
At the same time, Malaysia is emerging as a top hub for the ultra-rich – one of the fastest- growing. Its billionaires are set to surge 39% over the next five years, ranking the country 15th globally among nations with more than five billionaires, a new report says.
Malaysia’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals – those with assets over US$30mil (RM141mil) – will also grow 20% by 2031, according to The Wealth Report by independent global real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
And the wealth of Forbes’ 50 richest Malaysians leapt 30% last year to RM458bil. That’s a colossal sum. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the entire 2025 national budget.
This isn’t just a local trend. The world’s billionaires have grown 81% richer since 2020, anti-poverty charity Oxfam reports, up 16% in 2025 alone. Meanwhile, nearly half the world lives in poverty.
We are living in a billionaire era – a “Gilded Age 2.0”, but with a starker wealth disparity than a century ago. Inequality is at monstrous levels: Just 12 people hold more wealth than the poorest half of humanity (over four billion people).
Fortunes aren’t being built by sheer hard work. Oxfam’s analysis shows 60% of billionaire wealth is from cronyism, corruption, monopoly power, or inheritances, with 36% inherited outright. All young billionaires inherited their wealth. Some countries impose inheritance, estate, or gift taxes to curb this, but Malaysia has no such taxes.
Monopolies concentrate wealth by controlling markets and prices to maximise profits. Workers gain little – only 0.4% of major corporations commit to paying a living wage, says Oxfam. Using loopholes and tax havens, some businesses pay little or even zero income tax.
The wealthy amass assets – stocks, real estate – that appreciate, while deferring taxes through holding companies or tax havens. They “earn” from lower-taxed dividends or capital gains. In contrast, most people live off wages that are taxed more heavily, widening the wealth gap.
In Malaysia, a painfully narrow base of the workforce bears the tax burden. Think tank Emir Research points out that the squeezed middle class is “caught between rising living costs, stagnant wages, and thinning buffers of savings”, with high debt and overwork – 66% of households rely on second incomes according to a study.
Experts say that real wages have declined in recent years – reflected in some graduate starting salaries dropping to near-minimum wage levels – highlighting the need for wage-setting reforms.
Economist Dr Muhammed Abdul Khalid has long argued that our tax system is not progressive enough and needs revamping. The wealthy are not taxed enough – with the top tax rate relatively low – and are often favoured in public policies.
The sales and services tax hits lower-earners hardest. The fuel subsidy famously enriched the rich before recent targeted reforms, but critics still call for more to be done.
With oil prices surging, our fuel subsidy bill has exploded 10-fold to RM7bil in April alone, exposing fiscal strain. In reaction, the government is proposing cuts to health and education budgets – but why slash the bedrock that made Malaysia a development success when the ultra-rich could contribute more?
Former MP Charles Santiago argues a 2% wealth tax on the 100 richest Malaysians could plug budget gaps “without closing a single ward, classroom, or meal programme”. He warns that the middle class “is being slowly hollowed out”, and that many Malaysians cannot scrape together RM1,000 in an emergency.
Globally, momentum is building. The “Zucman tax”, developed by a French economist, is gaining traction in Europe and forums like the G20. It proposes a minimum 2% wealth tax on those with assets over £100mil (RM570mil), with global coordination to prevent wealth flight. The idea is to combat inequality, ease public debt, and stop the ultra-rich using loopholes to pay lower tax rates than average citizens.
The United Nations has reinforced this push with a new poverty-eradication roadmap that backs a 2% extreme wealth tax, robust corporate and inheritance taxes, and closing tax havens to fund systemic changes, alongside stronger global tax cooperation. It also calls for countries to broaden their tax bases by taxing assets and “economic ills” such as fossil fuels, and to move beyond GDP as a measure of progress.
The stakes go beyond money. Extreme wealth concentration threatens democracy: billionaires exert outsized influence over politicians, media, and redistribution attempts, while prioritising profits over public good – and the climate. Research shows billionaire wealth is heavily invested in polluting industries (such as oil) while their high-emission luxury lifestyles – private jets and more – compound the damage. Their wealth rises as the planet burns.
A system where a handful of tycoons can outspend governments, where the middle class pays taxes while elites hire accountants, where the masses scrape by as a few live in luxury isn’t just unjust. It threatens our future.
Malaysia could pioneer modest wealth taxes. What’s missing is political will. The question isn’t whether we can afford it, but whether we can afford not to.
