Suriname · Story

Suriname already has a wealth tax. It just doesn't collect it

A law from 1944 taxes net wealth at 0.8% a year. The 2023 budget counted on SRD 8 million from it. The unions, the economists' association and two parties want it collected, and the fix is already in the statute book.

Most countries argue about whether to introduce a wealth tax. Suriname has had one for eighty years. The Wet Vermogensbelasting was passed on 14 December 1944, and a 2021 article by the jurist Carlo Jadnanansing opened with his astonishment that, on radio and television, callers still asked whether the country should get one.^[1]^[2] Hardly anyone knew it was already law, because hardly anyone is made to pay it.

What the law says

Anyone living in Suriname owes the tax on their net wealth: everything of value they own, minus their debts, counted at the start of the year.^[1] The rate is 8 for every 1,000, which is 0.8% a year.^[1]^[2] The owner gets a tax-free amount first. Ravaksur, the trade union federation, puts it at SRD 100,000 for a single person and SRD 120,000 for a married one.^[3] People who live abroad pay on Surinamese real estate, mortgages and business assets.^[1]

Everyone who receives a form has to return it. The penalty for not filing, in the text on the Assembly's site, is a fine of at most 1,000 guilders, an amount in the old currency that the Assembly's text still carries.^[1] A law with a penalty that small is a law nobody is afraid of.

SRD 8 million from a country of fortunes

In 2017 the member of parliament Mohamed Amzad Abdoel said in the National Assembly that Surinamers have more than a billion dollars in the banks, and that the state collects on average less than SRD 5 million a year in wealth tax.^[6] It was, he said, almost a tradition that far too little tax is paid.^[6]

Six years later nothing had changed. The 2023 budget counted on SRD 8 million a year. Patricia Etnel of the NPS called it a shameful amount and did the sum out loud. Suriname has about 40,000 businesses. If one in ten holds real wealth, that is 4,000. The government says 150,000 households live in the country, 60,000 of them in need of help. If one in twenty of the other 90,000 is wealthy, that is 4,500 families. Together roughly 8,000 payers, she said, for an average bill of SRD 1,000 a year.^[5] These are her estimates, and they make the point: a tax this size cannot be a tax on the wealthy.

In 2024 a Dutch parliamentary delegation visited Paramaribo. Steven Debipersad, chair of the economists' association VES, told it that the tax office works badly and that virtually no wealth tax is paid, and named both among the points holding back growth.^[7] In November 2025 Ronny Asabina of the BEP, who is a tax expert as well as a member of parliament, called the amount collected ridiculously low and said it is no secret that the law is widely ignored.^[10]

The loophole is a legal form

The law taxes people. It does not tax foundations, called stichtingen, or holding companies.^[1]^[2] Jadnanansing found that tens of thousands of foundations have been set up for the sole purpose of owning real estate, even though the form was meant for ideal causes.^[2] The foundation holds the house, the owner holds nothing, and the tax has nothing to land on. Some countries have written laws that treat the foundation as its directors and tax them. Suriname has not gone that far, he notes.^[2]

The value is large. Jadnanansing gives an illustration: taxable wealth of one billion US dollars would yield eight million dollars at 0.8%, and the real estate in Suriname is worth a multiple of that billion.^[2] The revenue stays limited, he writes, until the real estate foundations fall under the tax.^[2]

Asabina says the same in plain terms. The gaps let people move their wealth into legal entities, foundations and cooperatives, and avoid the tax legally. The ones who lose are small owners, who cannot pay a notary the large sums needed to turn a small plot into a foundation.^[10]

The union federation Ravaksur has a number. Its spokesperson and economist Armand Zunder said in June 2025 that the law should cover legal entities as well as persons, because people park their wealth in foundations and holding companies. The state would then have at least half a billion new SRD a year.^[4] That is more than sixty times what the 2023 budget booked.^[4]^[5]

What to change

None of this needs a new tax. It needs four edits to the old one.

Cover the entities. Make foundations and holding companies liable, or let the tax office treat their owners as the owners. This is Zunder's and Jadnanansing's demand.^[2]^[4]
Raise the threshold so it hits the rich. Ravaksur wants the tax-free amount raised from SRD 100,000 to SRD 1.6 million.^[3] The reason: until about 2012 SRD 60,000 was enough for an average worker to build a house, so most never met the law. Now the inspector can value an old family home at millions while the tax-free amount stays at the old figure, and retirees with an old house get a bill.^[3] A threshold that reflects today's prices keeps the tax off a retiree and leaves the fortunes and the foundations on the hook.
Make the declaration real. Asabina wants the tax changed together with the declaration of income and assets that every public official must file, and says the treasury would be laughing.^[10] Officials who must disclose what they own are the first people the tax office can check.
Raise the fine. A maximum of 1,000 guilders does not frighten anyone with a house.^[1]

Armand Achaibersing, then Finance Minister, said the same in 2020: a wealth tax law already exists, and only the implementation has to be better.^[9]

What others do

Norway publishes the result. Anyone 16 or older can log in and search the tax lists, which show net income, net wealth and tax for each person.^[14] About 719,000 Norwegians paid kr 32 billion in wealth tax in 2024.^[15] Switzerland shows what the tax does when the state does not check. The tax offices get no bank data about residents, so financial wealth is whatever people write on the form. When cantons cut their rates, declared wealth jumped by at least 43% within six years, and about half of the increase came from people who stayed and simply declared more.^[16] The wealth was there all along. The answer is to have the banks report balances to the tax office. Suriname, where Abdoel counts more than a billion dollars on deposit, can start there.

Uruguay does what Suriname does not. Its wealth tax covers companies as well as individuals, and companies pay 1.5%.^[17]

Who backs it

The register holds twelve supporters in Suriname. They come from the union movement, the economists, the legislature and several parties. The BEP wants lower wage, income and profit taxes and more weight on consumption and wealth taxes, and Asabina says tax evasion has become child's play.^[13] The party PRO named the lack of a thorough wealth tax, with the tax on small-scale gold mining, as part of the unfairness behind a 40% jump in power tariffs.^[12]

"Hard work should not be taxed"

Finance Minister Stanley Raghoebarsing argued in June 2024 that people who built their wealth by hard work look with suspicion at being asked to share with people who work less or manage their money worse.^[11]

Look at who now pays instead. Asabina's answer in the same debate was that VAT takes as much from a poor person buying a bottle of water or a litre of fuel as from a rich one, and the poor person feels it more.^[11] The wage earner pays on every payslip. A household that holds a house in a foundation pays no wealth tax at all. The hard worker is the one the present system taxes first.

The minister himself accepted the principle: people who are wealthy should show solidarity.^[11] The law that puts it into practice has been on the books since 1944, and what is missing is the collecting.

Where to look next

The map shows Suriname, the directory lists everyone on the record and method lists the sources. For countries that tax wealth, see Norway, Switzerland and Uruguay.

Timeline

1944 The Wet Vermogensbelasting is passed on 14 December. It taxes people living in Suriname on what they own, minus debts.
2004 The latest of the amendments (1951, 1965, 1980, 1984, 2002, 2004) listed in the consolidated text. The 0.8% rate and the filing duty are unchanged.
2017 Member of parliament Mohamed Amzad Abdoel says the state collects on average less than SRD 5 million a year while Surinamers hold over a billion dollars in banks.
2020 Finance Minister Armand Achaibersing says the law exists and only its implementation has to be better.
2021 Jurist Carlo Jadnanansing writes that tens of thousands of foundations hold real estate outside the tax.
2023 In the budget debate Patricia Etnel calls the booked SRD 8 million shameful.
2025 Ravaksur asks in April for a tax-free amount of SRD 1.6 million and in June for the tax to cover foundations and holding companies. In November Ronny Asabina links the tax to the asset declaration of public officials.

Sources

The 12 supporters in Suriname