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SeedPublished 2026-10-23

The return of the wealth tax

Wealth and inheritance taxes appear on 19 recent papers in the economics journals, with 8 in the last quarter against about 4 per quarter before. Several countries are debating or reintroducing taxes on large fortunes. What did the earlier wealth taxes collect, how much wealth left, and what do the new designs change?

economicstaxinequality

What prompted this#

Since October 2025, 19 papers carry a wealth-tax, inheritance-tax or estate-tax keyword, all in economics journals: "wealth tax" on 12, "inheritance tax" on 4. Eight of them were published in July–September 2026 against about 4 per quarter earlier. "Wealth inequality" appears on 41 papers.

Questions#

  • In countries that kept or reintroduced wealth taxes (Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Colombia), how much did revenue and reported wealth respond, and how much of the response was avoidance rather than emigration?
  • Do minimum taxes on very high incomes, as proposed in several countries, raise more than wealth taxes with the same rate?
  • Do inheritance tax changes alter gifts and saving years before death?

Data that could help#

Tax records with wealth and migration information (Scandinavian registers, Spanish regional data), rich lists, and the dates of tax changes.

Next step#

Compare reported wealth and migration of top wealth holders in Norway around its 2022 wealth tax increase with those in Sweden, which has no wealth tax.

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
wealth tax0–26
inheritance tax0–10

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/wealth-taxes-return.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). The return of the wealth tax. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/wealth-taxes-return

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-wealth-taxes-return,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {The return of the wealth tax},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/wealth-taxes-return}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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