Debate: A Global Minimum Wealth Tax: Some Issues of Economics and Implementation
Abstract
Noting that many ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals pay very low effective rates of personal tax on their incomes, Zucman (2024, 2025) proposes a minimum wealth tax which ensures that UHNWs incur personal taxes of at least 2% of their worldwide wealth. This note discusses some anomalies of his hybrid income-and-wealth tax scheme, recounts some complexities in implementing and propagating it on a worldwide basis, given that individual wealth includes assets in many countries, and argues that there are other and no less appealing paths to much the same end, including taxing capital gains on accrual and enhancing inheritance taxation.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Corporate Taxation and Avoidance
State Capitalism and Financial Governance
Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Intertax
- Publisher
- Kluwer Law International BV
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- Issue 1
- Pages
- 49–54
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Language
- EN