The tax wouldn't be small. I do agree, though, the only real answer is to charge for putting things in orbit and refund it to whoever deorbits the thing.
If that fee is the entire estimated near-term cost to recover the object, it would also create incentives for entities putting large amounts of mass in orbit to focus on improved strategies for removal: if removal becomes lower cost than the fee, it's worth paying someone to recover your debris if a satellite fails in order to recover the fee.