Ancient democracies In
ancient Athens during its democracy, there was a form of capital levy known as a
liturgy (). The liturgy might be anything from financing a public play to supplying and manning a trireme for the navy. An Athenian could volunteer for such a levy, but if no-one volunteered, a wealthy person meeting the eligibility requirements would be ordered to supply it. They could escape by nominating someone wealthier to take over the duty; if the nominated person disputed this, the nominator could take the liturgy, or offer to exchange property with their nominee (
antidosis). If the nominee refused, the matter went to court, and the liturgy was assigned whoever the court case determined to be wealthier. Athenians often concealed their wealth to escape taxation, and
sycophants who discovered concealed wealth might use it as blackmail material. Antidosis helped the state identify the wealthiest people, and kept the rich suspicious of one another. Athens also had a wealth tax called
eisphora (see
symmoria), and for this purpose the city required each rich person give an estimate of his fortune (τίμημα). These self-assessments were not very accurate. The liturgy has not been much studied by economists.
The Economist, a British publication, opposed capital levies, but supported "direct taxation heavy enough to amount to rationing of citizens' incomes"; similarly, the American economist
Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague, in the
Economic Journal, argued that "conscription of men should logically and equitably be accompanied by something in the nature of conscription of current income above that which is absolutely necessary". In 1999,
Donald Trump proposed for the United States a one-off 14.25% levy on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more. Trump claimed that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the
national debt. The
Cypriot government levied 47.5 percent of Bank of Cyprus deposits over one hundred thousand Euros in July 2013. In October 2013, the
International Monetary Fund released a report The next year the Bundesbank proposed that Eurozone countries should attempt a one-off levy of bank deposits to avoid bankruptcy. A February 2014 report by Reuters showed the idea had gained traction in the
European Commission, which will ask its insurance watchdog later that year for advice on a possible draft law "to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing". In the United Kingdom, a report published by the
Wealth Tax Commission in December 2020 recommended the introduction of a one-off wealth tax in case the government chooses to raise taxes in order to address the challenges for public finances posed by the
COVID-19 recession. Without taking a stance on specific exemption thresholds or tax rates, the estimations presented in the report imply that a well-designed 5% one-off tax on individual net wealth above £500,000 could raise as much as £260 billion. The recommendations set out in the report were subsequently discussed in the
Treasury Select Committee. The chair of the committee,
Mel Stride, suggested that the proposal of a one-off wealth tax is “probably nearer the end of the spectrum of the possible-stroke-question mark-desirable than an annual wealth tax.” ==See also==