Wealth Tax as a Tool to Increase Tax Revenues in Polycrisis Times

Abstract

During the recent crises (specifically the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian aggression in Ukraine connected with the increase in energy prices), European governments amended many tax law norms to increase public budgets’ revenues and to support business and national economies. Not many of these amendments were related to property taxes. The paper aims to confirm or disprove the hypothesis that the wealth tax could be one of the solutions in the mix of tax amendments in polycrisis times in the Czech Republic. To achieve this aim, it is necessary to introduce and analyse fundamental changes in the area of tax law regulation, focusing on property taxation. The article also analyses individual structural components of wealth taxes collected in European countries. The acquired knowledge allows us to decide whether the wealth tax might be an appropriate tax tool in times of polycrisis and possibly to construct an adequate construction of the wealth tax for the Czech Republic and other countries with similar economic development.