IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dbp/wpaper/012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Behavioral Responses to Special Tax Regimes for the Super-Rich: Insights from Swiss Rich Lists

Author

Listed:
  • Enea Baselgia

    (University of St.Gallen and SIAW Institute)

  • Isabel Z. Martínez

    (ETH Zurich and KOF Swiss Economic Institute)

Abstract

We collect, digitize, and supplement Swiss rich lists published in the “BILANZ†business magazine since 1989, to gain new insights on the structure and dynamics of top wealth in Switzerland. We show that 60% of the super-rich are heirs—a fraction twice as large as in the US, where many super-rich are self-made—and that half of the super-rich residing in Switzerland are foreign-born. Based on this new dataset, we estimate the sensitivity of the location choice of super-rich foreigners to a preferential tax scheme, under which wealthy foreigners are taxed on their expenses, rather than their true income and wealth. We are the first to evaluate this infamous policy (which bears similarities with “non-dom†taxation in the UK or Italy), and show that when some Swiss cantons abolished this practice, their stock of super-rich foreigners dropped by 30% as a consequence. We find no response for the unaffected Swiss super-rich.

Suggested Citation

  • Enea Baselgia & Isabel Z. Martínez, 2023. "Behavioral Responses to Special Tax Regimes for the Super-Rich: Insights from Swiss Rich Lists," Working Papers 012, EU Tax Observatory.
    • Handle: RePEc:dbp:wpaper:012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.taxobservatory.eu//www-site/uploads/2023/02/EU-Tax-Observatory_WP-12_Behavioral-Responses-to-Special-Tax-Regimes-for-the-Superrich_February2023.pdf
    File Function: Full working paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    super-rich; tax mobility; preferential taxation; tax competition; wealth inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dbp:wpaper:012. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Inga Chilashvili (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eutaxfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.