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“It will start with billionaires and then spread to everyone.”

Wealth tax thresholds in Sweden, Denmark and Spain went up over time, and taxes should come from whoever can afford them

Sweden's threshold rose from SEK 800,000 in 1991 to SEK 3 million in 2006, until only the top 2% of couples paid. Spain's taxpayers fell from 981,498 to 188,680 as thresholds rose. Colombia's government bill of October 2026 would lift its threshold from 72,000 to 95,500 UVT.

By Egalitaristen · Updated November 9, 2026 · 3 min read

The objection says a tax that starts with billionaires won't stay there. It will slide down to the household with a paid-off house and a pension. The record doesn't support the slide. And the part of the objection that is true, that a tax will reach more than billionaires, describes a tax working as it should.

#What happened to thresholds

A threshold is a number in a law, and in the countries where we can follow it for years, it went up.

Sweden's wealth tax had a threshold of SEK 800,000 in 1991. By 2006 it was SEK 3 million for couples, and only couples in the top 2% of the wealth distribution owed anything. In 1999 everyone above the 92nd percentile had.^[1] Denmark's last law raised the allowance to DKK 2.4 million from DKK 1,635,500 the year before the tax went.^[6] In Spain the number of taxpayers fell from 981,498 in 2007 to 188,680 in 2015 as thresholds rose.^[2]

Colombia's government bill of October 2026 raises the threshold from 72,000 to 95,500 UVT, and the press reports that some people who pay today would stop.^[3] The direction in these cases is up, and each increase came from a government choosing where to draw the line.

#When a threshold slides on its own

A threshold can also move without a vote. Bolivia's is fixed in bolivianos: Bs 30 million. That was US$4.3 million when the law passed in 2020 and US$2.5 million in November 2026, because the boliviano fell from Bs 6.96 to Bs 11.81 to the dollar.^[5] The tax moved down the wealth scale with no change in the law. A threshold in a currency that loses value does that. The fix is to index it, which Uruguay does with its tax-free minimum.^[9]

#When a tax reaches many

A tax that starts low reaches many. Norway's wealth tax was paid in 2024 by 701,482 residents, 15.4% of adults.^[4] Of those, 313,434 paid under NOK 10,000, 178,023 paid NOK 10,000 to 24,999, and 2,838 paid NOK 1 million or more.^[4] The tax reaches widely, and the payments pile up at the top.

Swiss cantons with low thresholds show the same. In the canton of Bern, 30% of all taxpayers owed wealth tax in 2001 to 2011, with cantonal thresholds ranging from CHF 25,000 to CHF 200,000 in 2014.^[2] A threshold at the top reaches few: under 0.1% of US families would pay Warren's tax, and 34,229 filers paid Colombia's in 2025.^[7]^[3]

#Taxes come from those who can afford them

The objection quietly assumes there's a line below which a household can't be asked to pay, and that the households in question sit under it. A household with US$5 million in shares can afford 1% of it: US$50,000 a year, against a return of about US$250,000 at 5%. The 400 richest Americans paid total taxes equal to 1.3% of their wealth in 2018 to 2020.^[8] Every tax in the system works on the same principle: it is collected from those who can pay it, for the public good. Wages, purchases and homes all carry one.

If a tax reaches multimillionaires as well as billionaires, it's because they have the means. The pages on liquidity and double taxation answer the claim that they don't.

#Write the threshold into the law

Thresholds are the cheapest part of the design to protect. Put them in the law, in the currency of the tax, indexed to prices or to median wealth, so a change needs a vote. Say who the tax is for: Warren's design starts at US$50 million and the Oligarch Act at 1,000 times median household wealth. Then the claim that it will spread has a number to be tested against.

#Who says so

The Swedish story covers the threshold history, the Bolivian story the currency effect, the Colombian story the 2026 bill, and the Norwegian story the payer distribution.

#Where to look next

The next page takes up the claim that a wealth tax doesn't raise enough. The first page in this series sets out what a wealth tax is.