In the context of widening inequality, the taxation of wealth, particularly for ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) is emerging as a topic of renewed global interest. This has long been a highly controversial and polarizing subject, and the debate over it is significantly driven by its proponents’ conviction that such measures constitute essential instruments for advancing fairness and, above all, reducing inequality. Critics, by contrast, dismiss wealth taxes as distortive and ineffective. The present contribution adopts a more tempered perspective. It revisits the proposition that wealth taxation is not merely compatible with but arguably required by prevailing principles of tax justice, especially when considering the circumstances of UHNWIs. Additionally, this contribution contends that many of the generic objections to wealth taxation rest on ultimately unconvincing or contestable premises. At the same time, however, this article emphasizes that it constitutes a weak instrument in relation to a key objective commonly invoked in its support: the mitigation of inequality. In this respect, it argues that (net) wealth taxation has a limited capacity to restrain the accumulation of extreme wealth or to improve overall tax progressivity. Moreover, its effectiveness requires a significant degree of sustained international cooperation of which its political and institutional feasibility remains doubtful.
Intertax