Oh no! France lost Gerard Depardieu! Whatever will they do! /s In seriousness, I did have a number of French clients fleeing to California after France propose

Oh no! France lost Gerard Depardieu! Whatever will they do! /s In seriousness, I did have a number of French clients fleeing to California after France proposed a wealth tax. One of them famously said (of California): "I love it here! Your taxes are so low!" The downside of a wealth tax compared to other taxes is that it drains a corpus every year. It creates "financial anxiety" in the people it would target, similar to range anxiety in EVs. Even if the target could afford to pay the wealth tax and live comfortably for the rest of their lives of their children's lives, they are suddenly terrified that they will be taxed into the poorhouse if they misspend their money, and that anxiety drives them toward places without a wealth tax. Switzerland isn't a good example of why a wealth tax would work, since it's openly acknowledged that nobody actually pays the correct tax on their wealth; it is the same reason that Swiss banks were the financial institutions of choice for criminals and dictators for decades. (If I was being too subtle: the Swiss are notorious for under-reporting financial assets, and their banks are even more notorious for hiding the assets of account holders.)