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I keep hearing this idea from a variety of sources recently, and the idea is so absurd I don't even understand how it came to be. How, exactly, do you expect th

I keep hearing this idea from a variety of sources recently, and the idea is so absurd I don't even understand how it came to be. How, exactly, do you expect the government to tally the amount of wealth to be taxed for each person in the country? The amount of bureaucracy and auditing and enforcement it would require would dwarf the insurance industry, and waste taxpayer dollars to the extent that it couldn't actually be profitable for the government.

sobani 7y ago
The (US) government today has a tax on investment returns. Tallying up the buys and sells seems like to be a much more complicated than keeping track of the total wealth. The way you accomplish this is by asking everyone: "What's your total wealth?" and then doing random audits.
- friendelschudel 7y ago
  The very wealthy don't have liquid and easily-appraised assets. Calculating the total wealth of someone who owns art, jewelry, real-estate, historical artifacts, animals, and fractions of many international businesses is impossible. The idea that the wealthy can just print off a report from their TDAmeritrade account and turn it into the government is laughable. Even they don't have any real idea how much wealth they have.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> How, exactly, do you expect the government to tally the amount of wealth to be taxed for each person in the country? Ask and audit, the same way it does income. Of course, it's harder to get filed confirmation data for wealth and even easier to have an alternative valuation for wealth held in non-cash assets than for realized income, so it will be much easier to evade, but that's probably part of why it (which complicates our overall system of taxation) rather than taxing the currently tax-favored income of the rich, primarily capital gains, at the same rate as other income (which would simplify the tax system) is favored by people whose concern is to be seen as doing something about tax fairness.
- friendelschudel 7y ago
  I think by "easier to evade" you actually mean "impossible to enforce". The sorts of things the wealthy store their money in aren't easy or even possible to value, especially on some yearly basis.

sobani 7y ago

The (US) government today has a tax on investment returns. Tallying up the buys and sells seems like to be a much more complicated than keeping track of the total wealth. The way you accomplish this is by asking everyone: "What's your total wealth?" and then doing random audits.

friendelschudel 7y ago
The very wealthy don't have liquid and easily-appraised assets. Calculating the total wealth of someone who owns art, jewelry, real-estate, historical artifacts, animals, and fractions of many international businesses is impossible. The idea that the wealthy can just print off a report from their TDAmeritrade account and turn it into the government is laughable. Even they don't have any real idea how much wealth they have.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> How, exactly, do you expect the government to tally the amount of wealth to be taxed for each person in the country? Ask and audit, the same way it does income. Of course, it's harder to get filed confirmation data for wealth and even easier to have an alternative valuation for wealth held in non-cash assets than for realized income, so it will be much easier to evade, but that's probably part of why it (which complicates our overall system of taxation) rather than taxing the currently tax-favored income of the rich, primarily capital gains, at the same rate as other income (which would simplify the tax system) is favored by people whose concern is to be seen as doing something about tax fairness.

friendelschudel 7y ago
I think by "easier to evade" you actually mean "impossible to enforce". The sorts of things the wealthy store their money in aren't easy or even possible to value, especially on some yearly basis.