Progressive wealth taxes may be difficult to enforce if wealthy individuals underreport their wealth, but disclosure incentives and greater enforcement can improve tax collection.
Juliana Londoño-Vélez presents her work with Javier Avila-Mahecha which uses rich administrative data from Colombia and leverages a government-designed program for voluntary disclosures of hidden wealth, as well as the threat of detection triggered by the Panama Papers leak.
Paper:
"Enforcing Wealth Taxes in the Developing World: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Colombia" by Juliana Londoño-Vélez & Javier Ávila-Mahecha
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20200319&from=f
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