Nick أُعيد تغريده
Ten reasons wealth taxes don’t work:
1.Europe already ran the experiment and quit. Twelve OECD countries had wealth taxes in 1990; only four do now. Those that still have wealth taxes don’t have CGT or IHT.
2.Norway proved how dangerous they are. A tiny rate hike was meant to raise ~$146m; instead $54bn of wealth fled and revenue fell by ~$448m net.  They hit the opposite of the target.
3.It will hit regular people. Governments typically bring in taxes on the “super rich”, then when it doesn’t work they lower the threshold.
4.Britain already wealth-taxes by stealth. Council tax, stamp duty, dividend tax, frozen thresholds, CGT, 40% IHT, luxury tax, private school tax - we have a diffuse wealth tax wearing a dozen costumes.
5.Wealth is a guess, not a fact. Income hit a bank account; wealth is an opinion about future value. You end up taxing and then litigating based on arguable estimates, every single year.
6.Most people can’t tell wealth from income. The politics sells because the public conflates “owns £10m of illiquid business” with “earns £10m” - they’re nothing alike.
7.It punishes illiquidity. Paper-rich, cash-poor founders must strip dividends from their own companies to pay - taxing ownership by gutting the thing that makes jobs.
8.The mobile escape; the rooted pay. Norway’s most-taxed man left for Switzerland in a weekend.  The regional business owner and the homeowner can’t so they get the bill.
9.It causes capital flight. More super-rich Norwegians left in 2022 than in the previous 13 years combined.  Capital is the most mobile thing there is.
10.It eats the seed corn. Wealth is just deferred investment the capital funding the next hire and the next business. It raises little, invites avoidance, and drains the capital base. 
BONUS: 90% of what we call wealth now is intangible - intellectual property, data, algorithms, startup venture valuations, brand equity etc. The days of wealth being houses, factories and materials that can be seized are long gone. If you make your country anti-wealth you are basically making it anti-competitive in the modern economy.
Gary Stevenson@garyseconomics
Why does The Economist hate wealth taxes?
English
