In November, Californians will vote on the state’s proposed tax on billionaires, which, if passed, will slap a one-off 5% levy on the total wealth of residents worth more than $1 billion. Critics have warned that such an imposition will spark capital flight as wealthy people decide to simply uproot, as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have already started to do. A look across the Atlantic, where another broad wealth tax experiment was implemented across two decades, suggests these concerns might not be completely unfounded.
In 2018, less than a year into his tenure as president of France, Emmanuel Macron delivered on a landmark campaign pledge to abolish France’s “Solidarity Tax on Wealth,” known as the ISF. It was a progressive levy that targeted all assets, from real estate to stocks and art holdings, worth more than 1.3 million euros, approximately $1.5 million.
