Colombia Looks to Fix Finances With World’s Highest Wealth Tax

Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro loves to rally against the rich.

“We ask the rich: ‘Hey, don’t be so stingy,’” Petro said in a December speech. “What’s healthy economically is to raise taxes, but we don’t want to raise them on the masses like it’s always been done, but on the richest of the rich.”

Now, he’s making his biggest bet yet that the world’s highest wealth tax — inspired by economist Thomas Piketty and Petro’s belief that inequality is a moral outrage — may be the answer to fixing Colombia’s strained public finances.

Just before Christmas, Petro and ...