The journal
Journal
Each article takes one objection to a wealth tax and follows the evidence to where it leads.
Doesn't Capital Gains Tax Already Tax the Rich?
The charge is attached to an event. A shareholding that doubles and stays where it is meets no capital gains charge, so the honest version of the objection is about timing.
Could Payment Be Deferred Until an Asset Is Sold?
Deferral sounds like a loophole until you look at the interest. Norway prices the wait at its policy rate plus five points, and Britain already runs a ten-year instalment option in inheritance tax.
What About Founders Whose Shares Cannot Be Sold?
A founder cannot sell a fifth of a company to settle a tax bill. Norway defers for up to three years and charges interest; Spain exempts the holding altogether, and pays for that elsewhere.
How Would Debt Be Treated?
Net means debts come off, so borrow against what you own and hand in a smaller balance sheet. The regimes that tax a net base answered that in statute: a debt is a deduction only if the rules say so.
Would the Administrative Cost Exceed the Revenue?
France's tax authority spent close to 103 million euros running its wealth tax in 2016. Norway, Spain and Switzerland could give the Wealth Tax Commission no comparable figure at all.
Haven't Wealthy People Already Paid Income Tax?
The objection starts from something true: salaries, dividends, gains and estates all meet a tax. Income is taxed as a flow, wealth is a stock, and the receipt for one does not settle the other.
Would Every Wealthy Person Need an Annual Valuation?
The objection pictures everyone valuing everything they own once a year. About 22,000 people in Britain hold net wealth above ten million pounds, and everyone else files nothing.
Can One Country Tax Wealth in a Global Economy?
Mobility is usually argued as economics, and it is mostly enforcement law. Charging someone who has left is settled practice in Germany and Norway; collecting from them is only partly provided for.
The American Model: Taxing Citizens Wherever They Live
Could Britain tax citizens wherever they live, as America does? The treaty objection is weaker than repeated. But the American model is a pair, and Britain lacks the piece that makes it bite.
How Do You Value a Private Company?
Unlisted businesses have no market price, which is said to put them beyond a wealth tax. Spain, Norway and Switzerland each already put a number on them, and each pays a different price for doing so.
