Wealth confers a lot of things, not the least of which is the ability to avoid taxation. This is a fundamental law of the Universe, which I will hereafter refer to as the First Law of Wealth Mobility. When taxation becomes onerous, the wealthy have other options. Norway is just the most recent country to discover this fundamental truth.

In 2022 Norway’s third richest man, Kjell Inge Røkke, announced in an open letter to shareholders he was moving to Lugano, Switzerland.

“My capital will continue working in Norway,” wrote the fishing magnate turned industrialist who launched his empire four decades ago with a 69-foot trawler he bought while saving money working on ships off the coast of Alaska.

Røkke, who Forbes estimates has a fortune of $5.1 billion, will cost the Norwegian government an estimated 175,000,000 kroner annually (roughly $16 million) with his departure. That might not sound like a lot of money, but Røkke is not the only wealthy entrepreneur leaving Norway, The Guardian notes.

This isn’t the first instance of this happening; onerous taxation driving away the wealthy is happening here in the United States, too. The problem is, the Left doesn’t seem to be learning anything from this because they keep trying it, over and over and over.

Remember that old saying about the definition of insanity?

Norway is learning the hard way that wealth taxes are a bad idea. It’s important to note that this is a wealth tax, not an income tax; while income can produce wealth, wealth is not income.

Norwegian Business School professor emeritus Ole Gjems-Onstad estimated that the wealthy Norwegians took with them a total fortune of $54 billion when they left. This means that the wealth tax, which was projected to increase revenue by nearly $150 million annually, will result in about 40 percent less revenue than it currently generates. Luca Dellanna, a management advisor and author, points out that Norway collected about $1.46 billion on its wealth tax in 2019. But the exodus of the wealthy will result in an estimated $594 million in lost revenue.

Now, let’s look at the end of that statement. I would take issue with how it is worded; “lost revenue” implies that the government is somehow entitled to that money. Were it up to me, I’d say that “citizens were able to retain $594 million in wealth that was rightfully theirs” more accurately describes what has happened here.

While Norway is learning the hard way about how the wealthy can relocate their capital to avoid taxation, and while Norway’s middle class is realizing they have few, if any, similar options, leftist politicians here in the United States are looking with envy at the European nation’s wealth taxes, and ambitiously trying to implement the same thing here. But there’s a problem: It’s illegal.

Massachusetts’s own Senator Elizabeth Warren has been championing a wealth tax in the United States for quite some time now. The Constitution stands in her way, however. Article 1, Section 9, permits Congress to impose taxes on individuals as long as the amounts are equally apportioned among the several States. Imposition of the existing income tax required amending the Constitution in the 16th Amendment. The 16th is very plain in its language:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The 16th Amendment allows Congress to lay and collect taxes on incomes — not wealth. A wealth tax, such as Senator Warren champions, would require another constitutional amendment. Or it would, if the Federal government was still taking the Constitution seriously.

Legality aside: As long as there are wealthy people, politicians will try to “soak the rich.” As long as there are wealthy people seeking tax havens, there will be nations ready, willing, and able to provide those tax havens. As long as there are tax havens, the very wealthy will take advantage of them. I would. The wealthy here in the U.S. do, even on things as prosaic as yachts. And as long as government grows ever larger, more intrusive, and more expensive, as is its nature, the more the burden of paying for all that falls on the middle class, who have few options in wealth mobility.

The wealthy can shield their wealth from taxation. If a wealth tax comes for the net worth of the middle class, most of them can do nothing but pony up — or the government will send men with guns out looking for them. The ancient idiom, as always, applies.