Don’t tax wealth

Oct 2nd 2025|5 min read

France is in a giant fiscal hole. This year the government will run a deficit, where its spending exceeds its revenues, of €160bn ($190bn, or more than 5% of gdp). Investors in its bonds are nervous; politicians need to close the gap. Left-leaning economists, and a growing number of centrist ones, believe that a wealth tax is part of the answer. Gabriel Zucman of the Paris School of Economics, for instance, has proposed an annual levy of at least 2% on fortunes larger than €100m. Although the arguments of economists today are subtler than those normally used to support levies on wealth, they are just as wrongheaded.