Translated into English 2026

A summary

Catherine Dunlop

At 65 pages, this international bestseller is a long article or short manifesto.  

The general idea is that taxing billionaires is no more revolutionary than establishing income tax; income tax is accepted now as a matter of course, even if at the time it was created (end of 19^th and beginning of 20^th century) ferocious arguments were made against it, similar to the ones made today against a wealth tax, such as it will halt growth or kill innovation (none of which happened, quite the contrary).

Zucman proposes a tax of 2% on wealth over 100 million. This wouldn’t affect the 10% richest, only the 1%.  

Zucman starts his manifesto by describing how little tax the ultra rich pay compared to the rest of the population, including the richest 10%, basing his results on the work of many previous and current researchers.  He gives the example of France, which he says is typical of rich developed countries.  The middle classes pay an average of 51% of their income in taxes, the working class around 45% ‘V.AT, other indirect taxes such as fuel duties, payroll taxes (national insurance) and France’s flat income tax of about 10% on nearly all incomes are responsible for this substantial tax burden’.

What about the argument that the working class receives a lot back in the shape of benefits?  Zucman calculates that if you deduct those, the tax burden on the working class falls to about 30%, still a substantial amount.

In the US people including the well off pay less tax than in Europe, around 30% of their income, but this is because they pay for health and education separately and privately.

 Billionaires tend to hide what they pay in tax but research has been done and the results say that billionaires pay half as much tax as the average French person.

Billionaires pay just 2% income tax.  Is this compensated by corporation tax? No, that only ‘eats up 23%’ of their income.

And these are 2016 figures. Since then the French corporate tax rate has been cut from 33% to 25% and ‘the effective tax rate paid by large companies has fallen from 19% to 14%’.  

So why do billionaires pay so little income tax?  It is because they are able to ‘structure their wealth so that it does not generate individual income tax.’ For example by paying themselves very small incomes or else by setting up holding companies into which an income is paid; the company is not an individual and so not liable to tax, and these types of company are also not liable to corporate tax.  One year, Bezos, the Amazon billionaire, received benefit for his children because his declared income was so low.  ‘Billionaires have still not opted into the system [of income tax]’, notes Zucman.

Why does this matter?  It is ‘a fundamental violation of the principle that all citizens are equal before the law.’

The rise of inequality is striking: the wealth of the ultra rich in France grew by an average of 10% a year from 1996 to 2024 compared to 4.5% for the average person.

‘This spiral risks causing irreparable damage to our democratic ideals.’  When does democracy becomes oligarchy? asks Zucman.   ‘Is it when the wealth of the ultra-rich exceeds 50% of GDP?  One hundred per cent?  Two hundred per cent?  When they own not 80% of privately held media but 100%?  Or perhaps when they finally get their hands on our public media?  Or when they own not only entire Paris streets, but entire neighbourhoods?’

A quick look at the arguments against taxing the super-rich.

1.  The richest 10% pay ¾ of income tax in France; yes, but this is based on 4 million households, not the around 100 billionaires who operate outside the tax system we are concerned about here.
2. If billionaires have no income, why should they pay income tax?  This absence of income is done on purpose.  Billionaires can use money in their holding companies to buy property and assets, buy up competitors etc, all untaxed.  A 3 billion net worth generates say a 1% income, that is, 30 million a year, which is quite hard to spend.  If they are taxed on that income, it means they are taxed on 1% of their wealth.
3. Billionaires will pay tax later.  That is not the case.
4. Billionaires do not receive or want the fruit of government tax expenditure (health, education etc).  But the 10% of the next richest also may not need these goods, but they still pay 51% of their income in tax.  Billionaires are still part of society and should contribute to its welfare and cohesion.

World response to this situation.

 ‘The G20, under the presidency of Brazil, put it on the agenda of its 2024 summit’ and commissioned a report by Zucman himself.  In this report, he ‘recommended a minimum annual tax of 2% of wealth for ultra-high net worth individuals: those worth $100 million or more.’

‘This proposal was adopted by the French National Assembly in February 2025, only to be blocked by the Senate a few months later.’

Note that this applies only if such individuals do not already pay 2% of their wealth in tax; if they already pay say 1%, they only have to pay another 1%.

Since on average those individuals earn a 6% return on their wealth each year; a tax of 2% on that return would amount to a 33% rate of tax.

But will a billionaire tax work?

It will work if it is applied not to income, which can be made to disappear, but to wealth ‘which is much harder to manipulate’.  It will not be a repeat of the wealth taxes that have existed in Europe in the 20^th century.  These were failures because

1/ they effectively exempted the wealthiest.

For example the 1981 wealth tax introduced by Mitterrand exempted the super rich.  When it was abolished in 2016, it taxed billionaires at the rate of 0.005%.  ‘Any stake of more than 25% in a company, whether listed or not, was considered a ‘professional asset’ and exempted from tax’. 

2/ the super wealthy move to tax heavens.  This can be countered by following the American example.  US citizens are liable to US tax wherever they live in the world, for life.   Zucman suggests being less strict than the US and make tax-payers who move abroad only liable for tax for 5 or 10 years, or on a decreasing rate over time.

3/ tax fraud; since 2018, the automatic exchange of banking information has been in place world-wide; this should limit the hiding of assets.

Zucman ends with some more arguments that can be put up against his tax: what about companies that don’t make a profit yet?  They can sell a few shares; what about the ultra-rich with no liquidity?  They have made themselves illiquid on purpose, and can also sell shares to pay.

Zucman reminds his readers that great wealth wields great power, see Elon Musk given a place in Trump’s cabinet and while in post eliminating parts of government spending not to his liking.  This is something we as a society, cannot afford to ignore, says Zucman.  He concludes:

‘My proposed minimum tax on ultra-high net worth individuals finishes the job income tax started.  Like income tax, it, too, will eventually gain broad acceptance as the logical and necessary measure it is.’

Comment 

Presenting his idea as just ‘logical and necessary’ and not a bigger deal than income tax is probably a good way of achieving his aim. Being matter of fact will help to create a consensus.

In fact what Zucman proposes would not change the status quo much, it won’t reduce ultra wealth, only stop it from getting even more gigantic quite as fast.    Supposing the wealth of the ultra rich earns them 6% in interest a year, a 2% tax would just reduce the rate at which they get richer.  It would slow down the snowballing effect.  Nevertheless, the case needs to be made forcefully as Zucman does here, as we are quite a long way from having any political force, in the UK at any rate, that considers a tax on billionaires ‘logical and necessary’.  That little book with a red cover should be widely distributed; and as a comment on the cover says ‘Read it, share it and let’s get on with it’.