Indeed, sounds like a great reason to abolish the income tax.

Having a wealth tax doesn't mean the total tax goes up. Normally when discussing the merits of a certain kind of tax it's best to assume another tax is cut, otherwise it invariably becomes a discussion about whether high/low/more/less taxes are good.

I used to as well, but now I flipped. I don't think you should be taxed for doing things, I think you should be taxed for wealth. I think there should be no tax for working ( income ), buying things ( sales tax ), etc. Activity which promotes economic growth shouldn't be taxed. But wealth should be taxed. House/assets/etc should be taxed.

It's insane that you get taxed at 39% for work ( income ) but someone letting his money "do the work" gets taxed at 20% ( long term capital gains tax ).

> I should be able to go live in the woods alone and not have the government take some percent of my net worth just because I exist.

But the government protects your ability to do so. So no. Though I'd be in favor of governments setting aside land internationally where people are allowed to live "in a state of nature". They are not allowed to form tribes/governments, but are allowed to live "free" as they wish untaxed without the help of society.

> If I start a company and it gets valued at 30 million dollars, why should the government be allowed to force me to sell my company to pay their wealth tax?

Cause the company exists in a society governed/protected/etc by the government? It's the beneficiary of the environment.

> Now the government is going to force me to sell my car?

Nope. You could always go out and work to earn money to pay the wealth tax too and keep your car.

I'd be in favor of removing all taxes for one wealth tax.

I'm not so sure. Maybe we should. Wealth hording is a real issue. I'm at least open to the idea.

I agree with the rest of your comment.

Who says that?

We have actual wealth taxes, too, in the form of property taxes.

We already have a wealth tax. It's called "inflation." If the government wants to tax wealth, all they have to do is print money. The culture of living within your means and saving for the future basically died before I was born, so the point that this kind of policy punishes responsible citizens who are capable of living frugally, within their means, and saving the future is essentially moot.

Sales and income taxes are easy to implement because they're based around money actually changing hands. Property taxes are easy to implement because the physical thing that's being taxed is clear. General wealth taxes rely on accounting and valuation of illiquid assets, which is easily subject to gamesmanship.

If this was implemented, you'd just cash out your bank account every day, then tell the tax authorities you "spent" the money (in reality you keep a suitcase full of large bills under your mattress, but they have no way of knowing that). As long as you don't make a ton of money, and could conceivably be spending it on living well (vacations, movies, good food, alcohol, flowers for the significant other, etc.), how are they going to prove otherwise?

If you have more money, it gets more difficult to use that particular trick, but you'll also have more political power to get loopholes written into the law, and pay accountants to figure out how to make the loopholes work for you. And it'll also become more worthwhile to go to the trouble of keeping money overseas out of the range of taxation, or set up exotic financial structures like life insurance policies, trusts or derivatives, which don't have a definite value until they become payable.

I'm not an accountant, so some of the details might not be one hundred percent right, but it feels like that's a fair first approximation to what would happen.

Fine, but how do you do that without keeping the carried interest loophole that just won't go away regardless of which party is in power.

Switzerland does it and it seems to work pretty well.

I hold a similar view. Why should someone pay more taxes just because they earn more.

Taxes should include a 'constant' term for benefit that everyone in the society is reaping (e.g., security, public infrastructure and facilities, etc.). There can also be terms proportional to the spendings/lifestyle (i.e., sales tax) and even income, when again the government is introducing some benefit per sale or money earned.

The prime purpose for governments, and thereby enforced taxes should be to pay for things needed that no one individually will otherwise pay for but which the society as a whole needs. An an example, pollution hurts everyone, yet, no particular entity would spend on curbing pollution unless done by enforcing at a social level.

Note: If there is no tax whatsoever in earnings, there would also be a need for some additional tax like inheritance tax, which I support, so that people do not just keep on hoarding the earnings without ever spending.

You stop taxing income and start taxing wealth. A land tax would be a good start. Resource taxes are another.

The idea of taxing rich people is an ongoing conversation. I hear it discussed literally every day.

That actually makes sense if you want to avoid price gouging and scalping over the short term.

If you tax wealth then people will try to reduce the amount of wealth they have which is undesirable over the long term. If you tax land, people will reduce the amount of land they use, which is exactly what you want in an urban environment.

I'm in for that. Make taxes optional, so that if you believe they are a good thing, you pay taxes. If I think they provide no value to me, I pay no taxes and instead I contract services in the free market. That way everybody is happy and get what they want.

What do you think property taxes are?

I agree it would be really hard to tax all forms of wealth. But I'm fine with rich people hiding their wealth in artwork or stamps or whatever to save it from taxation. Keeps the money out of useful assets like stocks and houses.

aka, you want a wealth tax that you yourself are not subject to, in order to pay for services that you yourself _do_ utilize. Implied here is that these services would be paid for by such a wealth tax, and thus, your own tax is either reduced, or used to pay for even more services which you can utilize.

This is just another way to frame a selfish desire, but making it sound good because it targets somebody rich. A populous opinion imho.

Tax should be levied fairly. Wealth tax is not a fair tax. The current tax system is pretty progressive, and there just needs to be patches to the loopholes, rather than institute wealth tax, which just causes inconveniences for the wealthy at best, and causes them to move their wealth at worst (leading to worse economic outcomes).

The rich can leave. You can't, especially at the state level.

My house isn't very liquid, can't generate revenue very effectively, and I'm taxed every year on its current value. Guess us regular folks are already subject to a wealth tax.

I know I've said that we shouldn't do public policy by taxes but taxing wealth instead of income probably isn't easy. We can tax income because one person's income is another person's expense if I understand how this works.