Taxes are levied on all kinds of things that are not economic activity. Including, in Norway, on ownership.

> Count the number of companies created and grown in the last 20 years and see the trend. If it's going down your tax revenues will decrease. So indeed number of companies created is a very good proxy for future tax revenues.

Even if it was that simple, that does not provide even a correlation - much less causation - with wealth taxes, which Norway has had for decades. E.g. we'd expect to see changes corresponding with changes in the wealth tax rates.

Yes, I agree with you that taxes can be levied on property too, but to pay for those taxes economic activity is needed. I don't see how it's different though.

Companies and people need to generate money to pay for these. Profits are created by economic activity. When you increase the risk for companies to die by creating a cost that is not easily planned you decrease your future revenues. just basic math...