As Bangladesh approaches its next budget in early June, a once-taboo question is edging into the mainstream: should the taxman look beyond income and begin taxing wealth more directly?For years the country’s fiscal debate has revolved around familiar themes which include raising revenue, widening the tax net and squeezing a little more from salaried workers who are easiest to monitor. Bangladesh’s difficulty is well known. Its tax-to-GDP ratio has hovered near 7% in recent years – among the lowest in Asia. OECD data put the figure at 7.2% in 2023, far below the Asia-Pacific average of 19.5%. In practical terms, that means the state raises far less, relative to the size of the economy, than most of its peers. Bangladesh’s total tax take is roughly $35-40 billion annually, depending on exchange rates and final collections.Yet a deeper problem has become harder to ignore. Wealth, especially urban property and inherited assets, has accumulated far faster than the state’s ability to tax it.If any government here is serious about progressive taxation, they may soon have to confront those who own the most…not merely those who earn the most.The logic is pretty straightforward. Progressive tax systems were built on the principle that citizens with greater means should contribute more. Traditionally that has meant graduated income-tax bands.But in many countries income is no longer the clearest measure of privilege. A retired landlord with modest declared earnings may own several flats. A family company may generate little taxable salary while controlling substantial assets.Children of affluent households can begin adult life with apartments, land and financial wealth that others will spend decades trying to acquire.Taxing wages while sparing accumulated wealth is not progressive; it is selective.That is why inheritance tax, sometimes derided as a “death tax,” has reappeared in policy circles. Such levies apply when assets pass from one generation to the next.The economic case is compelling. Inherited wealth entrenches inequality more efficiently than almost any labour market ever could. It rewards birth over effort, pedigree over productivity.A moderate tax on large estates can slow the creation of dynasties while raising revenue from those least likely to be plunged into hardship by paying it. Even modest sums would matter in Bangladesh’s context. If a targeted inheritance or net-wealth levy raised only 0.3% of GDP annually, that could amount to roughly $1.5-1.7 billion a year. A stronger regime yielding 0.5% of GDP could generate around $2.5-2.8 billion – meaningful money for health or social protection. The political case however is another matter. Inheritance tax is unpopular almost everywhere it exists. Opponents deploy a simple and potent argument: the assets in question were accumulated from income that was already taxed, then perhaps taxed again through property charges, stamp duties or capital-gains levies.Also read: IMF Pauses Loan Plan For Bangladesh: How Did Dhaka Get There?Why should bereaved families be hit once more merely because ownership has changed hands? It is a complaint with emotional force, even when economically overstated.Bangladesh now appears to be weighing such an option. If so, the design will matter more than the slogan. A badly drawn inheritance tax would become a bureaucratic nuisance and a middle-class grievance machine.If modest family homes, small savings or inherited farmland are dragged into the net, the measure would be seen – probably rightly – as a raid on ordinary households. If valuations are opaque and enforcement arbitrary, it would become one more avenue for corruption.Yet a carefully structured version could be defensible. High exemptions would shield ordinary families. Only substantial estates – large portfolios of urban land or apartments and major financial holdings – would face meaningful rates.Transfers to surviving spouses could be protected. Family businesses could be given phased payment schedules to avoid forced sales. Such mechanisms are common elsewhere because without them inheritance tax becomes clumsy and cruel.There is another, perhaps simpler, route to progressive taxation: recurrent property taxes on multiple homes. Across rich countries governments have grown fonder of taxing underused housing stock, second residences and speculative ownership.New York is on its way to impose higher levies on expensive pieds-à-terre. Britain already imposes higher council-tax burdens and surcharges in various cases involving additional properties.The rationale is practical because housing is scarce, urban land is valuable and idle assets distort cities.Bangladesh’s major urban centres would be fertile ground for such a policy. In Dhaka and other cities, property ownership is concentrated and often lightly taxed relative to value. It is common for affluent households to hold several flats or plots while much of the population faces punishing rents and limited access to decent housing.A graduated annual tax on second, third and subsequent urban properties – especially those left vacant – would be easier to administer than inheritance tax and harder to avoid. It would also encourage productive use of assets rather than speculative hoarding. If such a surcharge covered only high-value additional urban holdings, it could plausibly raise $1-2 billion over time while improving land use efficiency.The obstacle is mostly political. Many of those with influence over tax policy belong to the very class that would pay more under a serious wealth-based regime.Legislators, business elites and politically connected families are hardly strangers to multiple properties. Asking them to vote for heavier taxes on themselves requires either unusual statesmanship or severe fiscal pressure. Bangladesh has not always been rich in the former.That creates a familiar danger. Governments often advertise progressive reform, then settle for measures that leave entrenched wealth untouched while burdening the compliant middle.Salaried professionals, whose incomes are visible and taxed at source, become the default prey. Meanwhile large asset holders exploit undervaluation, weak registries, nominee ownership and negotiated assessments.A nominally progressive tax system can thus become regressive in practice.South Asia offers useful lessons. India abolished its wealth tax in 2015 after collections proved trivial and compliance costly, replacing it with a surcharge on very high incomes. Pakistan once had wealth taxation but gradually moved away from it, relying more on income and property-related levies. Sri Lanka has repeatedly turned to property and capital taxes during fiscal stress. The regional message is clear: wealth taxes can work, but only if records are credible, exemptions narrow and enforcement serious.If Bangladesh wishes to avoid that trap, three principles should guide reform. First, tax wealth where it is concentrated, not where it is merely aspirational. A family’s lone apartment should not be treated like a landlord’s portfolio.Second, simplicity beats grandiosity. A workable surcharge on multiple urban properties may achieve more than a theatrical inheritance tax riddled with loopholes.Third, transparency is essential. Citizens tolerate taxes more readily when they can see cleaner streets, better transport and functioning public services in return.The coming budget may reveal whether the government wants applause or actual reform. Taxing wealth is easy to praise and hard to do. But a state that relies too heavily on wages while sparing property is not progressive but timid. Bangladesh can continue nibbling at the incomes of the visible, or it can begin charging the comfortable price of comfort.Faisal Mahmud is a Dhaka-based journalist