Who should pay higher taxes: people who earn a lot, or people who own a lot? We know a great deal about how people think about labor income taxation, but surprisingly little about their views on wealth and inheritance taxes. This knowledge gap is striking because wealth is much more unequally distributed than income and wealth inequality is increasing in many countries (Saez and Zucman, 2016; Hoffmann et al., 2020; Kuhn et al., 2020). Consequently, redistributive taxes on wealth and inheritances could help to make the tax system more progressive and meritocratic (Saez and Zucman, 2019). On the other hand, opponents worry about fairness, efficiency, and economic impact.

We propose to field a survey that lets respondents design their own preferred tax system,
covering income, (housing) wealth, capital gains, and transfers between generations. By holding overall revenues constant, the survey highlights real trade-offs: reducing one tax means another must increase. These data will be the first to investigate attitudes to such broad range of taxes using quantitative measures that are anchored to the status quo, and that link people’s preferred distributions to the policies needed to achieve them.

Now is the time to collect these data. The data are relevant for the recurring discussion on the fiscal treatment of housing, such as mortgage interest deductions and the imputed rent
(‘eigenwoningforfait’), currently discussed in election programs. Inheritances are expected to increase due to the growing share of wealthy older individuals. And finally, the data also inform the detailing of the ongoing Box 3 tax reform, which shifts from a de-facto wealth tax to a tax on capital gains.

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