Remember Jamus Lim proposing wealth taxes of up to 2% for Singapore? Well, this is what has just happened in Norway, after the government bumped the local wealth tax rate by 0.1%.
Norway is one of the few countries which is taxing wealth, at a combined rate of 1% (0.7% at municipal and 0.3% at state level) per year.
It is no surprise, then, that despite having a population similar in size to Singapore (ca. 5.5 million people), only about a dozen of its residents made it to the Forbes billionaire list, compared to Singapore's tally of 35.
The country is also bleeding multimillionaires, who'd rather park their fortunes elsewhere and save themselves millions of dollars in annual taxation.
"Ole Gjems-Onstad, a professor emeritus at the Norwegian Business School, said he estimated that those who had left the country had a combined fortune of at least NOK 600bn (US$57.5bn)."
These people no longer live in Norway, spend in Norway, pay taxes in Norway and may cut their investments there as well.
Meanwhile in Singapore, famously wealthy thanks in no small part to its attractive tax system that is a magnet for foreign capital and high net worth individuals, someone floats an idea to tax the rich at rates of up to 2%.
Yes, that's what Jamus Lim proposed in 2021.
Back in November that year I wrote a post here, summarizing his ideas as a really effective tool in fighting inequality - by chasing all of the rich people away.
When you have no rich people everybody else is much more "equal" in statistical tables. Equally poor.
If you needed evidence that that's exactly what would happen, you got it now.
