A progressive European wealth tax to fund the European COVID response

Abstract

European governments have reacted swiftly to the COVID crisis and are now discussing ways to mutualise the cost of the epidemic. This column proposes the creation of a progressive, time-limited, European-wide progressive wealth tax assessed on the net worth of the top 1% richest individuals. If fighting COVID-19 requires issuing 10 points of EU GDP in Eurobonds (or a rescue fund worth 10 points of EU GDP), a progressive wealth tax would be enough to repay all this extra debt after ten years.

Topics & Concepts