Empirics prove wealth taxes stymie growth and cause mass exodus

(Frances, State Government Affairs Associate at Citizens Against Government Waste https://www.cagw.org/thewastewatcher/wealth-tax-will-slow-down-economic-growth , 5-10)

President Joe Biden and several states are working on plans to “tax the rich” to pay for programs that will purportedly address public needs like childcare and education, address income inequality, or reduce budget deficits. Like similar attempts around the world to impose wealth taxes, they will stymie economic growth, fail to raise the estimated revenue, encourage businesses to move operations overseas or to lower tax states, and reduce the number of wealthy individuals. When “the rich” leave, taxes will be increased for everyone else. In 1990, there were 12 European countries that had imposed a wealth tax on their citizens, but only three still have such a tax. In France, the wealth tax led to a “exodus of an estimated 42,000 millionaires between 2002 and 2012.” In 2020, President Emmanuel Macron repealed the tax. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the wealth tax, “was expensive to administer, it was hard on people with lots of assets but little cash, it distorted saving and investment decisions, it pushed the rich and their money out of the taxing countries—and, perhaps worst of all, it didn't raise much revenue.”