Putting a tax on billionaires leaving is actually a brilliant idea…
Consistent: they made that wealth, in your country, so by the same principles of income tax, VAT, or corporation tax, we know the government believes it deserves a cut. All that money they take wth them is money the government was intending to dip into slowly over the course of 10 years or so.
Targets a Loophole: Billionaires are of course uniquely positioned to relocate on a whim - normal people and even many millionaires will not be able to do this, as they can’t change jobs on the fly, get someone else to sell their house for them, remotely buy a house in another country.
Motivates them to be better: the taxation of billionaires is ultimately about increasing the complexity of the system until they’re left with no choice but to be useful. But first we have to weather the storm of them trying to bribe the government not to tax them, before we can get there.
So basically the governments of the uk and usa are always like 'ah we can’t tax the rich because they’ll run away and then we’ll go from 10% tax effectiveness to 0%, when countries of a similar developememt level are already doing it and doing fine?
Apparently the US also has it (and I just read in a different 2025 article that the vast majority of expatriates do not have to pay it because they’re not rich enough).
Putting a tax on billionaires leaving is actually a brilliant idea…
As stated in this post, this exists in several countries: Germany, Norway…
So basically the governments of the uk and usa are always like 'ah we can’t tax the rich because they’ll run away and then we’ll go from 10% tax effectiveness to 0%, when countries of a similar developememt level are already doing it and doing fine?
Apparently the US also has it (and I just read in a different 2025 article that the vast majority of expatriates do not have to pay it because they’re not rich enough).