Richest 10% of Irish households hold nearly half the wealthOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\nThe general public also has a tendency to regard \u201cthe rich\u201d as being other people, rather than themselves. Reliable data on wealth in particular is hard to come by, making it hard for finance ministries and their advisers to perform the kind of cost-benefit analysis that informs good policy.<\/p>\n
Yet there are significant differences between billionaires and mere millionaires, which experts say should be reflected in how governments approach the question of how to tax them.<\/p>\n
As one analyst puts it: \u201cIt depends if we\u2019re talking about the billionaires \u2013 or about lots of people who have seen their houses rise a lot in value and who have more generous pension provision than cohorts before or since.\u201d<\/p>\n
It can be technically easier to tax this cohort as they tend to have more ties to their home country and are less likely to move. But \u201cit\u2019s politically harder to go after that bigger group of middle-class baby boomers\u201d, the analyst adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tricky one, because everybody is in favour of progressive taxation, but one of the problems is there are no limits to it,\u201d says John Barnett of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. \u201cAt what point does the final straw break the camel\u2019s back?\u201d<\/p>\n
While the super-rich are politically easier targets, they have the most incentive to avoid taxes and access to the best lawyers and accountants. They are also highly mobile; steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, cement billionaire Nassef Sawiris and art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth are among those who have left the UK, or signalled their intent to do so, following changes to the non-dom regime. Critics of wealth taxes warn that their expenditure and philanthropy may depart with them.<\/p>\n
![\"Executive](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/A65JXNJWZKBZU7XZGOA4OTGYOA.jpg\")
Executive chairman of Arcelor Mittal Lakshmi Mittal is among those to have left of pledged to leave the UK. Photograph: LUDOVIC MARIN\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n
Income-based taxes are not particularly effective in taxing this cohort, according to Zucman. He cites research from a team he led, based on anonymised tax returns filed at the US Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n
It found that the top 400 wealthiest Americans had a total effective tax rate of 23.8 per cent of income in the years from 2018 to 2020, including individual income taxes, estate and gift taxes, and corporate taxes. In comparison, the rate for the wider US population was 30 per cent, rising to 45 per cent for the highest-earning workers.<\/p>\n
To address this, Zucman has advocated for a global tax of 2 per cent levied annually on those with more than $1 billion in total wealth, including assets such as real estate, equity stakes and larger corporate shareholdings.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t think of a more targeted measure than that to try and increase their taxes,\u201d he says, adding that advances in tax transparency, the ending of bank secrecy and the exchange of financial information among tax authorities mean it is now harder for rich people to hide wealth.<\/p>\n
The idea was discussed at the G20 last year, but did not secure backing from all its members. Zucman is now mounting a campaign to get his proposal adopted in his home country of France.<\/p>\n
Norma Cohen, a former FT journalist who is now an honorary research fellow at Queen Mary University of London, points out that historically, asset-based taxes were the main revenue generators for many governments.<\/p>\n
Taxes on income in the UK were \u201ca mid to late 20th-century phenomenon\u201d closely tied to the emergence of a welfare state. \u201cUp until the first world war, there were barely any income taxpayers in the UK,\u201d she says. \u201cBritain taxed other things: inheritances, land and, to a much lesser extent than other European countries, levied tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
But tax experts say that turning to more asset-based taxation in the modern era is fraught with difficulty. Administration and enforcement are challenging, while defining wealth and valuing assets \u2013 especially those that do not trade on public markets \u2013 also present practical difficulties.<\/p>\n
David Sturrock, associate director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warns that taxing wealth \u201cis going to discourage accumulating wealth\u201d and flies in the face of governments\u2019 efforts to persuade more people to save and invest for later life. \u201cWhat you want to be doing is to try to raise revenue in a way which doesn\u2019t distort and discourage economic activity,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
One option to address the issue of the rich simply moving their assets elsewhere is the exit tax. Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan are among the 14 OECD countries that tax unrealised capital gains for those who change their tax residence, while the US taxes individuals who relinquish their citizenship.<\/p>\n
\u201cTax flight happens less than most people think, but it does happen,\u201d says Arun Advani, director of CenTax, a UK based think-tank, and professor at the University of Warwick. But, he adds: \u201cIt\u2019s a policy choice to let them emigrate tax free.\u201d<\/p>\n
An OECD working paper on capital taxation this year agreed that exit taxes could curb revenue leakage and discourage tax-induced migration, though it added that these objectives needed to be balanced against other policy aims \u201csuch as attracting and retaining talent and entrepreneurs\u201d.<\/p>\n
One country more accustomed to balancing the needs of its population with those of the itinerant wealthy is Switzerland, which operates a forfait or lump sum tax system for well-off foreigners who want to live there.<\/p>\n
Rich foreign individuals can elect for this basis of taxation, which involves bespoke agreements with local cantonal authorities regarding the exact overall tax they pay on their income and wealth. For those not eligible, all cantons levy a net wealth tax based on the balance of worldwide assets minus debts, with rates ranging from 0.1 per cent to 1 per cent.<\/p>\n
Users of the forfait system are not allowed to work in Switzerland, so it is more suited to those who have already accumulated fortunes rather than active entrepreneurs and businesspeople. Wealth taxes raise more here than in other countries, but still account for less than 5 per cent of total tax revenues.<\/p>\n
Lisa Cornwell, who leads PwC\u2019s private client and family office business in Switzerland, says the country is \u201cnever the cheapest\u201d for rich foreigners wanting to move, but offers other attractions. \u201cSwitzerland is private, it\u2019s discreet,\u201d she adds. \u201cYou might pay more money, but there\u2019s a diversity of cities, it\u2019s safe, it\u2019s clean and it\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s debt is also low relative to its GDP and its citizens enjoy an enviable standard of living. Yet even here, there is pressure for reform. In November, Switzerland will hold a referendum on the introduction of a federal tax on inheritances and gifts worth more than SFr50 million (\u20ac53 million) on top of existing cantonal duties. The tax would not include an exemption for spouses or direct descendants.<\/p>\n
The proposal was tabled by a far-left political party, but tax advisers and lawyers in the Alpine nation warn that some wealthy individuals are already leaving in response.<\/p>\n
Other countries, such as the UAE and Italy, are happy to welcome them. The former has no personal taxes, while the latter charges a fixed fee of \u20ac200,000 a year for those seeking Italian tax residency.<\/p>\n
Such practices \u201craise all sorts of problems and big issues of fairness\u201d, says Zucman, the Paris School of Economics professor. \u201cWhy should foreign billionaires be allowed to pay less, even though they benefit from infrastructure and access to markets?\u201d<\/p>\n
Emma Chamberlain, a UK tax barrister who advises wealthy international families, says \u201cthere seems a sense of resentment against the wealthy\u201d and a popular notion \u201cthat we should just fleece them for as much as we can get\u201d.<\/p>\n
Given the chequered history of wealth taxes, many experts advocate reforming existing levies on things like property, gifts and inheritances and capital gains before rushing to implement new ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we need a wealth tax? My answer is no, we don\u2019t,\u201d said Richard Murphy, a professor of accounting at the University of Sheffield, in a recent blog. \u201cNot only will it take time to put into place, but there will be a long learning curve before it can be got right.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that it would be much quicker and easier \u201cto change the rates and allowances and reliefs on wealth and gains already reported\u201d to the UK\u2019s tax authorities.<\/p>\n
Chamberlain says increasing rates or finding new things to tax tends to result in \u201ca lot of avoidance\u201d that serves to limit the sums raised. \u201cI think it would be better if the UK government could have a more positive narrative … and just rule out things like a wealth tax, an exit tax and more inheritance tax changes,\u201d she adds. \u201cThe Swiss wealth tax works because it\u2019s at such low rates.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for European countries in particular, facing rising health and welfare costs from ageing populations and increased defence spending, the issue of who to tax and how is unlikely to recede, however tricky the mechanics.<\/p>\n
Cohen, of Queen Mary University, warns that by 2050, \u201cthe percentage of [the UK\u2019s] population aged 65-plus will be around 25 per cent\u201d. With fewer workers supporting more retirees, \u201cwe need to find something other than income tax, purely based on demographic change\u201d.<\/p>\n
Daniel Bunn, president of the Tax Foundation, a US think-tank, says that \u201cgovernments have time to address things, probably through [reductions in] spending \u2013 although governments don\u2019t enjoy doing that\u201d.<\/p>\n
Stuart Adam, senior economist at the IFS, says: \u201cIf we got the economy growing a bit, that would make life a lot easier [for governments] as the lack of growth and an ageing population does make it harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the vast assets of the wealthy remain a tempting target, and Saint-Amans muses that the ranks of the super-rich are high even by historical standards. \u201cPeople looking back at this time in 100 years will say, \u2018These people were mad, they let a number of people become extremely rich, owning not billions but hundreds of billions,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cA few individuals own the world and that is wrong. It fuels populism, which will just reinforce the situation.\u201d \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Forbes magazine released its first global billionaires list in 1987, just 140 names appeared on it. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,381,1647,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,4520,7,8,393,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-72557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-elon-musk","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-tax","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Elon](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/KTHBDUCGFFFEF3VMOHEQBLIFCA.jpg\")
Elon Musk is now worth more than $300bn. Photograph: Maansi Srivastava\/The New York Times<\/p>\n![\"Pascal](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/K6Z3DEAVXCUN42RVZ2DVDODKIM.jpg\")
Pascal Saint-Amans is a former director of the OECD centre for tax policy and administration. Photograph: AFP <\/p>\n