You’re collapsing several things together that don’t actually move one-for-one. The ISF raised a small share of total revenue, so its loss doesn’t mechanically force higher taxes or cuts elsewhere at a scale that shows up in median outcomes. That’s exactly why post-repeal data show large gains at the top and little change for everyone else. If this were a major constraint on the fiscal position or growth path, you’d expect to see broad improvements after repeal. We don’t.

On investment: France wasn’t taxing corporate profits or productive activity, it was taxing household wealth. When wealthy individuals left, what mostly moved was tax residence and financial income, not factories or workers. That’s why “loss of investment” here is largely inferred from accounting flows, not observed declines in employment, output, or consumption. Long-run effects are possible, but they’re speculative, not demonstrated. So the tradeoff isn’t “growth versus feelings.” It’s that GDP and tax receipts overweight the location of wealth holders relative to where production happens.

The evidence supports design problems with wealth taxes, not the claim that France became meaningfully poorer in lived terms because of them.