A plunder requires technique. You cannot just pick off the rich; you must ensure they cannot run away, cannot siphon off, and cannot look away. Therefore, we have built three walls at the same time.

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

The first wall — which we make higher every evening

The first wall is the most visible. Wealth taxes, higher top rates, the end of flat-rate systems, tax on "actual return". The instrument is comparable everywhere: from a simple declaration to a complex administration where the citizen must report his actual wealth annually, and where the burden of proof lies with him.

In Nederland the new box 3-system takes effect in 2028. In Duitsland the DGB-plan for two percent wealth tax per year circulates. In Spanje and Noorwegen the wealth tax is already running. In Frankrijk and België social levies are rising. The pattern is the same everywhere: broader base, higher effective pressure, more administration.

The productive citizen is no longer taxed on what he earns, but on what he has. That difference is fundamental. Income tax punishes consumption. Wealth tax punishes saving, investing, and accumulation. We have chosen to punish accumulation. We have chosen against capital formation. That is not a technical detail; that is a choice of civilization.

We did not only vote for this. We designed it. The Nederlandse box 3-reform was written by officials of the Ministerie van Financiën, educated at our universities with our tax money. The Duitse wealth tax proposals come from the DIW, financed from the Duitse treasury. The Franse exit-tax was developed by tax experts from the École Nationale d'Administration, an institute that we have established to form our elite.

This is not the work of anonymous forces. It is 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 have convinced them. We have read the books they have written. We have honored their lectures. We have funded their research.

The second wall — which we have built around them

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

Norway levies 37.84 percent on unrealized stock gains upon departure, payable after twelve years — even without sale. France drags its claim along for eight to fifteen years. The German Wegzugsteuer already takes effect with a stake of one percent in any company whatsoever. The Netherlands imposes a protective assessment on substantial interest that remains indefinitely. Belgium introduced a trailing window of twenty-four months in April 2026 during which gains follow across the border.

The legal principle behind all these regulations is the same: the state appropriates the right to tax someone based on where they have been, not where they are. That is the end of the principle of territoriality as it has functioned since Westphalia. We have learned in four centuries that a person can detach themselves from a country — that the right to leave is a human right — and we have now reversed that decision.

Think for a moment about what this means in concrete terms. The French inventor who wants to live in Switzerland because his research partner is at ETH is pursued fiscally by the French state for fifteen years. The German Mittelständler who wants to transfer 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 his health discovers that his protective assessment remains hanging indefinitely.

We voted for parties that said: "we won't let the rich escape". We received that slogan with applause. We didn't ask what it means in substance. It means: serfdom with a bank account. The Zucman doctrine says it out loud. A country may continue to tax those who leave "as residents for five to ten years". That is no longer taxation. That is a new form of slavery, with the smile of morality.

The third wall — which we haven't even seen

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 January 1, 2026.

CARF is an abbreviation of the OECD. DAC8 an abbreviation of 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 will also report — automatically, cross-border, in real time.

Additionally, starting mid-2026, the European Digital Identity Wallet will become mandatory for financial services. Every transaction above a threshold will be traceable to a state-certified identity. Privacy through anonymity — the old model of Swiss coupons, Liechtenstein foundations, Panamanian corporations — we have statutorily terminated in eighteen months.

We wanted this. Over the past ten years, we have demanded that the rich can no longer siphon off. We have praised journalists who published offshore lists. We have booed politicians who voiced suggestions of fiscal restraint. We have demanded the transparency that we are now receiving.

And we haven't noticed that the same instrument that makes the rich transparent also makes us transparent. Every transaction. Every account. Every purchase above a threshold. Our own freedom of financial movement has been caught in the smoke of the hunt for the rich. We have built the panopticon in which we thought only others would be. 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 the complicity.

Gabriel Zucman is not an anonymous bureaucrat. He is a French economist who teaches at Berkeley, publishes in our magazines, speaks at our conferences. We welcomed him in 2008 as a promising doctoral student. We have put his books on the bestseller lists. We have elevated his proposals to serious policy because we find them sympathetic. He is not them. He is 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 analyses. We have formed them, funded them, praised them, elevated them to our moral compass. We get the policy we asked them for.

The civil servants in The Hague, Berlin, Paris and Brussels who write the laws, have studied at our universities, have been trained in our traditions. The union leaders who demand the German 350-billion levy represent our employees. The journalists who explain the policy write for our newspapers. The judges who apply the laws are our judges.

And above all this stand we, the voters. Not one emperor, not one party, not one government. An eighty-five million strong German, a sixty-eight million strong French, an eighteen million strong Dutch majority that repeatedly chooses parties that go in this direction. We are the architect. We are the contractor. We are the mason. And we are the prisoner.

The three exits that are still open

Within Europe, there are exactly three legal routes left for those who want to take their wealth out of 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 taxation, still intact in Valais, Ticino, and Vaud. Abolished in Zurich and Basel by referendum — by Swiss voters who choose the same pattern as we do.

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 space to build a business.

Other exits we have closed by law within eighteen months. The British non-dom: abolished in April 2025 under a Labour government that the British voter has chosen. The Portuguese NHR: abolished in 2023 under political pressure that we have exerted. The Spanish Golden Visa: abolished in April 2025. The Maltese investment citizenship: struck down by the European Court of Justice in April 2025, following complaints that we encouraged.

We have bricked up the exits one by one. With our own hands. And we have received applause for it from our own press. We have congratulated each other every time an escape route was closed.

Why 2026 to 2028 is the decisive window

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

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

Anyone who only reacts in 2028 reacts too late. The claim the Netherlands places on your BV shares applies to whoever is a tax resident on January 1, 2028. The Norwegian twelve-year clawback applies from the day you leave. The Belgian twenty-four-month window starts running on your deregistration date. Every month of waiting costs a month of maneuverability.

That is no coincidence. That is design. Not from anonymous forces, but from people we have chosen to draw up this planning. People who will ask for our vote again in the next election, and to whom we will probably give our vote again.

The moral cover we sell to each other

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

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

Solidarity would be: a voluntary contribution from the strong to the weak. What we do is a mandatory transfer under the threat of an exit ban. We call that solidarity because we do not want to say out loud what it actually is.

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

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

Conclusion

The mechanism is in place. Three walls, simultaneous, coordinated. We have brought 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 assets" becomes a term with an asterisk: your assets, insofar as the state allows you to keep them.

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 have screamed the loudest for the looting will suffer the most.

For that is the cruelest lesson of history, and the least described: a people that has driven out its builders ends up poorer than its refugees.

PART III OF FOUR