Should we care if the rich are getting richer? Yes, but only enough to make sure they pay their taxes

So, just 62 people own as much wealth as the bottom half of all humanity put together. That number decreases every year, but it's like we're waiting for the point where it's only one person who's rich as half of humanity before we'll be impressed.

Either we're becoming jaded by constant reports of income inequality, or we're not paying attention because we're being asked to draw the wrong conclusions. Probably both.

International charity Oxfam releases a report on global wealth inequality every January. This year's report just happens to come right before the rich and powerful gather at Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Oxfam's report is giving the politicians there a gold-plated opportunity to talk about the wrong things.

It is true, the share of global wealth is concentrating in ever-greater extent, to the top percentile of people. In 2010, it took 388 people to amass as much wealth as the bottom 50 per cent of people in the the world, according to Oxfam. That dropped to 177 people in 2011, then 159 in 2012, plummeting to 92 in 2013, and in the global economic struggles beginning in 2014, a slight drop to 80. Now, it's 62.

But that's not the information that should outrage us the most, or the one that decision-makers should concentrate on. The report is just data.

What should outrage is how little this group gives back, considering their vastly disproportionate wealth.

Oxfam reports that of the fortunes of this group, about $7.6 trillion resides in the accounts of tax havens.

Are you weary of being asked to contribute, over and over again, to alleviate the worst effects of poverty in Africa? Oxfam reports almost a third of the total wealth of that continent is held offshore. Gabriel Zuchman of the University of California, Berkeley estimates that $14 billion has been lost as revenue for African countries to improve their own economies and infrastructure for education and health care.

In my view, that's more important than the data of mere inequality.

But don't think it's just Africa that offends in this way.

A sidebar to the Oxfam report tells us that five Canadians hold the equivalent wealth of the bottom 30 per cent of all Canadians.

Global News has the list posted, and it includes all the usual suspects. But smack in the middle of that list is Garrett Camp, owner of the Canadian arm of Uber and a major web developer.

Uber doesn't pay taxes, or is at least reported not to pay taxes. The drivers are expected to, but 20 per cent of every Uber ride goes to a holding company in the Netherlands, which pays another holding company in the Netherlands for the right to Uber's intellectual property, which is not taxed in that country. From there the money goes to an offshore haven owned by the top holding company in San Franscisco.

The scheme is called by Fortune Magazine “double Irish with a Dutch sandwich” and it's used by a lot of international companies whose payments occur online and which don't become real money, until they're out of reach of the tax departments of the countries where the payments were made.

In fact, Oxfam says 188 of 201 leading global companies use offshore havens to avoid helping to maintain the infrastructure of the economies that generate their wealth. Uber drivers use the road, they block the parking stalls and the bike lanes of big cities — why doesn't the parent company contribute like their licenced taxi competitors, and everyone else?

That's where the anger should be focussed. The Canadian government under the Conservatives refused to accept data offered to them, listing the biggest Canadian tax cheats, who collectively owe hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars to the nation. Canada helped build their wealth, why shouldn't they support our nation according to law?

There's plenty of criticism of Oxfam's methodology and reporting. Yes, CEO salaries increased almost a thousand per cent since 1982, while worker salaries increased a mere 10.9 per cent.

But wealth is not a finite pie. In that time, the value of S&P 500 companies increased by more than 500 per cent. That's a whole lot of new wealth, reflected in the value of millions of Canadians' RSP accounts — at least those who invested and held through the numerous up-and-down cycles over the years.

More, Oxfam's study calculates wealth as a simple assets-minus-debts equation. In that scenario, a young Canadian worker making $50,000 a year, but with a big student loan and a mortgage is listed among the world's poorest people. Apples and over-ripe bananas, as far as poverty should be considered.

I don't like seeing the egregious wealth-taking the world talks about. But what I hate more is how we ignore the ability of the super-rich to thumb their noses at tax-paying slobs like us who build the economy that makes them so rich.