EU Report Weighs Benefits of Taxes on Wealth, Capital Income

Various approaches to taxing wealth could be useful to address intergenerational inequality and wealth distribution issues in the European Union, a report by the European Commission found.

In its Annual Review of Taxation, the commission looked at debate around taxing wealth, either through net-wealth taxes, as employed by Spain, or alternatives such as one-off taxes or increasing taxes on capital income, which in most of the bloc is taxed at lower rates than labor. Switzerland and Norway, not EU members, also have net-wealth taxes.

In the EU, tax revenue from households’ capital income amounted to 0.9% ...