I think that wealth taxes are too hard to implement to be practically worth doing.
To know what wealth tax bracket someone would be in, the federal government would have to know how much their assets are worth. Valuation of liquid, publicly-traded assets like securities and even cryptocurrencies is relatively straightforward (at least fo…
I think that wealth taxes are too hard to implement to be practically worth doing.
To know what wealth tax bracket someone would be in, the federal government would have to know how much their assets are worth. Valuation of liquid, publicly-traded assets like securities and even cryptocurrencies is relatively straightforward (at least for a given, backward-looking point in time), but valuation of private assets is quite difficult.
If we implemented a wealth tax, you'd see wealthy people shift their investments into privately traded assets like real estate. This would drive up housing costs for most Americans even more while driving down the values of their retirement portfolios and pension plans, which invest mostly in publicly-traded securities. Meanwhile, the rich people would employ legions of lawyers and accountants to make their privately held assets look less valuable to the government.
I think we should do more targeted taxes like land value taxes, yacht / jet taxes, etc.
I think that wealth taxes are too hard to implement to be practically worth doing.
To know what wealth tax bracket someone would be in, the federal government would have to know how much their assets are worth. Valuation of liquid, publicly-traded assets like securities and even cryptocurrencies is relatively straightforward (at least for a given, backward-looking point in time), but valuation of private assets is quite difficult.
If we implemented a wealth tax, you'd see wealthy people shift their investments into privately traded assets like real estate. This would drive up housing costs for most Americans even more while driving down the values of their retirement portfolios and pension plans, which invest mostly in publicly-traded securities. Meanwhile, the rich people would employ legions of lawyers and accountants to make their privately held assets look less valuable to the government.
I think we should do more targeted taxes like land value taxes, yacht / jet taxes, etc.