Only 3 percent of more than 1,000 tax recommendations made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to governments in recent years focus on taxing wealth and income from wealth, according to a press release published by Oxfam on April 13, 2026, ahead of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. Oxfam examined the IMF’s tax advice to 125 countries between 2022 and 2024, drawing on a dataset of 1,049 recommendations extracted from Article IV reports. Just 30 of those recommendations focus on net wealth taxes and the taxation of income from wealth, namely capital gains. This comes as billionaire wealth has surged by 81 percent since 2020.
Oxfam’s analysis exposes two striking discrepancies in IMF guidance depending on a country’s income level. While 52 percent of tax advice to high-income countries was progressive, 59 percent of tax advice to low- and lower-middle-income countries was regressive. IMF tax advice to Canada and the United States was overwhelmingly progressive, while advice to South Asia was the most regressive, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. India received the highest number of regressive recommendations. In the past 25 years, the inequality gap grew in twice as many low- and middle-income countries that received mostly regressive IMF tax advice (25 percent) than in those that received mostly progressive advice (11 percent).
The IMF links its tax advice to inequality far more often for high-income countries (34 percent) than for low- and lower-middle-income countries (8 percent), even though nearly 90 percent of those lower-income countries have medium or high inequality. Chile, with one of the highest levels of income inequality, was advised to raise tax rates on low- and middle-income brackets while leaving rates on top income brackets untouched. Nigeria, where nearly one-third of the population lives in poverty — the highest rate in Africa — was advised to increase value-added taxes. Hungary was advised against implementing a windfall profit tax on energy companies, even though the IMF had publicly supported such taxes. Oxfam also found that 10 percent of IMF tax recommendations address gender inequality, and more than 90 percent of all IMF tax guidance focuses on tweaking existing measures.
Kate Donald, Head of Oxfam International’s Washington DC Office, stated: “The IMF is operating with a troubling double standard that calls into question the evenhandedness it holds as a core principle. It offers mostly progressive tax advice to rich countries, yet its guidance for the rest of the world remains largely regressive. The Fund must provide equally progressive tax advice to all members — or admit its commitment to tackling inequality is merely rhetorical.”
Oxfam estimates that 45 energy corporations made on average $237 billion per year in windfall profits in 2021 and 2022, due largely to energy price shocks linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since March 2026, the world’s largest oil majors have been experiencing a boost in share prices, partly reflecting expectations of further windfall gains.
Oxfam urges the IMF to use its ongoing comprehensive review to reform how tax policy is integrated into its economic surveillance. The organization calls on the IMF to systematically place inequality at the heart of all fiscal advice and to discourage over-reliance on consumption taxes. Oxfam also urges the Fund to broaden recommendations for taxing high-net-worth individuals, support measures to curb corporate tax avoidance, publish distributional impact assessments of all tax advice, and develop a centralized database to track and publicize tax recommendations included in Article IV reports.
