Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“The idea of a wealth tax on society’s richest people is suddenly in vogue, thanks to the political stalemate in France. Economist Gabriel Zucman, who divides his time between Berkeley and Paris, has proposed a wealth tax that maxes out at 2 percent, on France’s top 0.1 percent of households, just 1,800 people, whose wealth exceeds 100 billion euros, about $118 billion. So highly concentrated is wealth in France that the tax would bring in between $15 billion and $25 billion annually, enough to substantially reduce France’s huge budget of close to 6 percent of GDP without unpopular budget cuts. More than anywhere else, France poses that stark choice. … What gives the Zucman tax special resonance at this moment is that three French governments have fallen in the past year over demands for cuts in popular social spending.” (10/03/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-03-taxing-rich-emmanuel-macron-france/