Draft The wording, numbers and structure of this page are still being revised and will change.

“Europe tried a wealth tax and gave up on it.”

Four countries scrapped their wealth taxes instead of fixing them, and the problems they named are still there

Twelve rich countries had a wealth tax in 1990 and four did in 2017. In Sweden, Denmark, Germany and France the faults governments blamed were rules they could have changed: exemptions, bad valuation, an income cap. Sweden's repeal cost SEK 6.89 billion a year. France's swap for a real estate tax cost over €4 billion a year, and the share of payers who left stayed at 0.2%.

By Egalitaristen · Updated November 9, 2026 · 5 min read

Twelve rich countries had an annual wealth tax in 1990. By 2017 only four did.^[1] That is the fact people reach for when they say wealth taxes have been tried and don't work. Look at how the other eight got rid of theirs and a different story comes out. Governments found loopholes in the tax, and instead of closing the loopholes they scrapped the tax. The loopholes were still there afterwards, and so was the bill.

#Nobody was forced

Sweden's tax went because a new centre-right government wanted it gone. In December 2007 the parliament voted 142 to 101 to scrap it. The Left Party and the Greens abstained.^[4] In Denmark the Social Democrat who negotiated the repeal, Mogens Lykketoft, later wrote that it was never his wish. It was the price of getting the Conservatives to back a budget.^[7] In Germany a coalition majority drafted a repeal bill in 1996, and its own budget committee struck the repeal out.^[12] In France the 2018 finance law swapped the tax for one on real estate.^[15] Every one of these was a vote that could have gone the other way.

#Sweden: scrapped the tax, kept the loophole's winners

The Swedish government gave two reasons. The valuation rules were uneven and full of exemptions, which created loopholes. And money could leave the country.^[2] Both are problems with the rules. LO, Sweden's trade union confederation, said exactly that: it would be better to remove the exemptions than to remove the tax.^[2]

The government did the opposite. Scrapping the tax cost the state SEK 6.89 billion in 2007 alone.^[3] The owners of unlisted companies, the people the exemption had protected, paid nothing before and nothing after. The people who stopped paying were the ones with bank accounts, funds and houses.^[6]

What about the money leaving? A study of Swedish tax records found that the repeal made wealthy residents about 30% less likely to leave. That is the entire flight argument in one number, and Sweden paid billions every year to buy it. The same study finds that a one point higher top rate costs the economy about 0.10% of output.^[5] A tax that follows people out the door would have kept the money and the people: Norway's exit tax now runs for 12 years after a person leaves.

Thirteen years after the repeal, Sweden's own equality commission looked at what had happened to wealth. Private wealth had doubled in 20 years, and 0.001% of the population owned 6% of it. The commission's advice was to study bringing the tax back.^[6]

#Denmark: worn down, then dropped

Denmark's tax was hollowed out before anyone repealed it. Reliefs for business assets, a ceiling on the combined income and wealth tax and a discount for major shareholders ate the base. Lykketoft described a tax that in the end only a few conscientious rich people with bad tax advisers paid.^[7] As late as 2022 Denmark's tax minister admitted that in most cases the true value of an unlisted share was higher than the value the tax had used.^[9]

So the fault was valuation, and it was never fixed. The government dropped the tax instead, giving up about DKK 760 million a year from about 35,000 families.^[8] Repeal also cost Denmark something it didn't plan for: after 1997 Statistics Denmark stopped recording the wealth that people reported themselves, which broke the data series and made the repeal itself hard to study.^[10]

#Germany: the court asked for a fix, the government shrugged

Germany's tax is the clearest case. Many people think the Constitutional Court killed it in 1995. It didn't. The court found that land was valued at 1964 prices and everything else at current prices, which isn't equal treatment, and told parliament to fix it by the end of 1996.^[11] The coalition drafted a repeal. The budget committee removed the repeal clause, and the committee's report spells out the result: the law stays on the books, and nobody can collect the tax.^[12]

The German states, who had received the money, asked to be paid back in full. They were paid back with higher taxes on property transfers and inheritance, not with a tax on the fortunes.^[13]^[14] The valuation problem that started it has since been solved: since 2009 inheritance tax values land and companies close to market prices, and the research institute DIW proposes the same rules for a wealth tax.^[14] No wealth tax bill has gone out in Germany since 1997.

#France: the best-documented failure of a repeal

France's old wealth tax, the ISF, had a ceiling tied to income. The state's own evaluation committee found that the ceiling cost about €2 billion a year, twice what the tax administration had estimated, and that the richest 0.001% paid 0.1% of their wealth in 2017. The tax raised €4.2 billion that year.^[15]

In 2018 the government replaced it with a tax on real estate above €1.3 million. Two thirds of former payers owed nothing the next year, and across all of them the average bill fell from €8,000 to €1,600. The new tax raised €1.29 billion in 2018 and €1.83 billion in 2022. The committee puts the cost of the swap at more than €4 billion a year by 2022.^[15]^[16]

Did it stop people leaving? Before the repeal, 760 payers left in 2017, which is 0.2% of about 360,000. After it, about 270 a year left, out of roughly 130,000 payers: 0.2% again.^[15]^[16] The committee also found no lasting move out of property, and no sign that the old tax had cut dividends or investment.^[15] France paid more than €4 billion a year and the problem it was solving did not change.

#They came back, and new ones started

Spain gave its tax a 100% credit in 2008 and brought it back in 2011. Iceland reinstated its tax for 2010 to 2014.^[1] Norway, Switzerland and Spain never stopped. Colombia made its wealth tax permanent in 2022 and Bolivia created one in 2020.^[17]^[18]

#What fixing it looks like

Every problem these governments named has a known repair. Value everything at market value, which is how German inheritance tax has worked since 2009.^[14] Give the largest holdings no exemption, which is the Swedish flaw.^[6] Take away any cap tied to income, which is the French flaw.^[15] Set the threshold at the top, so a few thousand households carry the tax.

A tax with a loophole is fixed by closing the loophole. A repeal takes the tax away from everyone, including the people who never had a loophole, and leaves the biggest fortunes with the same advantage they had before. Four countries chose that. They lost revenue and kept the faults.

#Who says so

The Swedish, Danish, German and French stories have the full sources for each case and the people who argue for a new tax. Sweden's own trade union confederation said in 2007 that the exemptions should go, not the tax.^[2]

#Where to look next

The next page takes up the claim that the rich will leave. The Swedish, Danish, German and French stories hold the full record, and the calculator shows scales from Spain, Switzerland and Norway.