Plunder requires technique. You cannot simply strip the wealthy; you must ensure they cannot flee, cannot spirit their assets away, and cannot look away. That is why we have built three walls simultaneously.

Ring wall one: higher rates inside. Ring wall two: claims at the border. Ring wall three: international coordination outside. Whoever sees the three together no longer sees a series of separate measures. He sees a fortress. And whoever looks inside that fortress sees not one tyrant but millions of hands carrying the stones. Our hands.

The first wall — which we raise higher every evening

The first wall is the most visible. Wealth taxes, higher top rates, the end of lump-sum systems, taxation of "actual return". The instrument is broadly similar everywhere: from a simple tax return to a complex administration in which the citizen must declare his actual wealth annually, and bears the burden of proof himself.

In the Netherlands the new Box 3 system takes effect in 2028. In Germany the DGB plan for two percent wealth tax per year is in circulation. In Spain and Norway the wealth tax is already running. In France and Belgium social levies are rising. The pattern is the same everywhere: a broader base, a higher effective burden, more red tape.

The productive citizen is no longer taxed on what he earns, but on what he holds. That distinction is fundamental. Income tax penalises consumption. Wealth tax penalises saving, investing, and building. We chose to penalise building. We chose against capital formation. That is not a technical detail; it is a civilisational choice.

We did not merely vote for this. We designed it. The Dutch Box 3 reform was written by officials at the Ministry of Finance, trained at our universities with our tax money. The German wealth tax proposals come from the DIW, funded by the German treasury. The French exit tax was drafted by fiscal specialists from the École Nationale d'Administration, an institution we created to train our elite.

This is not the work of anonymous forces. These are our own institutions, our own academics, our own officials, paid from our own treasury, who design the wall behind which we want to lock up our builders. And they do it with conviction. They believe in it. We convinced them. We read the books they wrote. We awarded their lectures. We funded their research.

The second wall — which we built around them

The second wall is newer and more insidious. No longer "you live here, you pay here", but "you once lived here, you keep paying". The instrument is called exit tax. We ordered it in every flavour.

Norway levies 37.84 percent on unrealised share gains upon departure, payable after twelve years — even without a sale. France trails its claim for eight to fifteen years. The German Wegzugsteuer triggers already at a one-percent stake in any company whatsoever. The Netherlands imposes a conserving assessment on substantial interests that remains in place indefinitely. Belgium introduced in April 2026 a trailing window of twenty-four months during which gains follow you across the border.

The legal principle behind all these measures is the same: the state appropriates the right to tax someone based on where he has been, not where he is. That is the end of the territoriality principle as it has functioned since the Peace of Westphalia. Over four centuries we learned that a person can sever ties with a country — that the right to leave is a human right — and we have now reversed that.

Think for a moment about what this means in practice. The French inventor who wants to move to Switzerland because his research partner is at the ETH is fiscally pursued by the French state for fifteen years. The German Mittelstand entrepreneur who wants to pass his factory to his daughter in Italy finds his assets frozen for twelve years by the Wegzugsteuer. The Dutch family business owner who wants to move to Spain for health reasons discovers that his conserving assessment remains in place indefinitely.

We voted for parties that said: "We will not let the rich escape." We applauded that slogan. We did not ask what it means in practice. It means: serfdom with a bank account. The Zucman doctrine says it openly. A country may continue to tax those who leave "as residents for five to ten years". That is no longer fiscal policy. That is a new form of bondage, wearing the smile of morality.

The third wall — which we never even noticed

The third wall is the most invisible, and therefore the most dangerous. It is called CARF and DAC8. It has been operational in 76 jurisdictions since 1 January 2026.

CARF is an OECD acronym. DAC8 one from the European Commission. Together they close the last gap in international information exchange. Banks have been reporting all your accounts to your tax authority since 2017. From 2026, crypto platforms, custodians, brokers, and wallet providers also report — automatically, cross-border, in real time.

In addition, from mid-2026 the European Digital Identity Wallet becomes mandatory for financial services. Every transaction above a threshold is traceable to a state-certified identity. Privacy through anonymity — the old model of Swiss bearer bonds, Liechtenstein foundations, Panamanian companies — has been statutorily ended within eighteen months.

We wanted this. For the past ten years we demanded that the wealthy could no longer spirit assets away. We praised journalists who published offshore lists. We booed politicians who suggested fiscal restraint. We demanded the transparency we are now receiving.

And we did not notice that the same instrument that makes the wealthy transparent also makes us transparent. Every transaction. Every account. Every purchase above a threshold. Our own financial freedom of movement was caught in the crossfire of the hunt for the rich. We built the panopticon that we thought only others would inhabit. We were mistaken.

Who designs the walls

The ease with which we talk about "Brussels" and "the elite" and "the political class" is a lie we tell ourselves to hide our complicity.

Gabriel Zucman is not an anonymous bureaucrat. He is a French economist who teaches at Berkeley, publishes in our journals, speaks at our conferences. We welcomed him in 2008 as a promising doctoral student. We put his books on the bestseller lists. We elevated his proposals to serious policy because we find them sympathetic. He is not one of them. He is one of us.

Emmanuel Saez is his co-author. Thomas Piketty his predecessor. Marcel Fratzscher in Germany, Esther Duflo at MIT, Branko Milanović in Belgrade and New York. They are all academics with good intentions and solid analysis. We shaped them, funded them, praised them, elevated them to our moral compass. We get the policy we asked them for.

The officials in The Hague, Berlin, Paris and Brussels who write the laws studied at our universities and were trained in our traditions. The union leaders demanding the German 350-billion levy represent our workers. The journalists explaining the policy write for our newspapers. The judges applying the laws are our judges.

And above all of this stand we, the voters. Not one emperor, not one party, not one government. An 85-million-strong German, a 68-million- strong French, an 18-million-strong Dutch majority that keeps voting for parties heading in this direction. We are the architect. We are the contractor. We are the bricklayer. And we are the prisoner.

The three exits still open

Within Europe there are precisely three legal routes left for those who want to place their wealth beyond reach. Not four, not ten. Three.

Italy, with the 24-bis regime: a flat tax of 200,000 euros per year on all foreign income, rising to 300,000 in 2026.

Switzerland, with the cantonal lump-sum tax model, still intact in Valais, Ticino, and Vaud. Abolished in Zürich and Basel by referendum — by Swiss voters choosing the same pattern as us.

The United Arab Emirates, outside Europe. Outside our culture. Outside our language. With an autocratic political climate that is not to everyone's taste, but with zero personal income tax and the legal room to build a business.

Other exits we closed by law within eighteen months. The British non-dom arrangement: abolished in April 2025 under a Labour government the British voter elected. The Portuguese NHR: abolished in 2023 under political pressure we applied. The Spanish Golden Visa: abolished in April 2025. Maltese investment citizenship: annulled by the European Court of Justice in April 2025, on complaints we encouraged.

We sealed the exits one by one. With our own hands. And our own press applauded us for it. We congratulated each other every time an escape route was closed.

Why 2026 to 2028 is the decisive window

The sequence of measures reveals the plan, and we have cheered every step.

First, close the escape routes — that happened in 2025. Then activate the information infrastructure — that happened on 1 January 2026. Then tighten the exit taxes — that is happening now, in 2026. Only then introduce the new levies — that is planned for 2027 and 2028.

Whoever waits until 2028 to respond is too late. The claim the Netherlands places on your company shares applies to anyone who is a tax resident on 1 January 2028. The Norwegian twelve-year clawback runs from the day you leave. The Belgian twenty-four-month window begins ticking on your deregistration date. Every month of waiting costs a month of room to manoeuvre.

That is not coincidence. That is design. Not by anonymous forces, but by people we elected to draw up this timetable. People who will ask for our vote again at the next election, and who will probably receive it.

The moral cover story we sell each other

We sell all of this to each other under three words: fairness, solidarity, transparency. None of them describes what is actually happening.

Fairness would be: equal rules for those who produce and those who consume. What we do is the opposite — those who produce are taxed extra, those who consume are spared. The civil servant pays no wealth tax because he has no wealth. The retiree pays no exit tax because he does not leave. The welfare recipient pays no substantial-interest claim because he has no substantial interests. We have designed a tax system that spares precisely those who receive most from the state, and strikes precisely those who take least from it.

Solidarity would be: a voluntary contribution from the strong to the weak. What we do is a compulsory transfer enforced by the threat of an exit ban. We call it solidarity because we do not want to say aloud what it really is.

Transparency would be: the citizen's right to know what the state does. What we do is the opposite — the state's right to know everything about the citizen. We shifted the emphasis of the word without anyone noticing. Transparency used to be about government. Now it is about you.

The words have been reversed, and we applauded the reversal.

Closing

The mechanics are in place. Three walls, simultaneous, coordinated. We carried every stone, attended every meeting, ratified every election.

A window of eighteen to twenty-four months in which capital can still choose. After that the system closes, and "your wealth" becomes a term with an asterisk: your wealth, to the extent the state allows you to keep it.

In Part III: what happens when we get what we ordered. What our South Africa will look like when the time comes. And why the people who shouted loudest for the plunder will suffer the most.

Because that is the cruellest lesson of history, and the least written about: a people that drove out its builders ends up poorer than its refugees.

PART III OF FOUR