To me the sad thing about the wealth tax is that it distracts attention from the value-added tax, land-value tax and carbon tax, which, while not as progressive

To me the sad thing about the wealth tax is that it distracts attention from the value-added tax, land-value tax and carbon tax, which, while not as progressive as the wealth tax, are much better as potential revenue sources and can easily be paired with better welfare programs (e.g. universal tax dividend née "basic income") to be similarly redistributionary in practice. The wealth tax satisfies a combative urge in our politics to stick it to the rich, but if there's one thing consistent about wealth taxes, it's that the actual receipts are not so high. France's much-ballyhooed wealth tax brought in a measly ~5B euros (about 7B USD) per annum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_tax_on_wealth#Revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_tax_on_wealth#Reven... France's annual government revenue is easily above 100B euro, so the wealth tax -- which, as 'thomasdullien appears to have argued, was too high -- brought in around 2% of government revenue. Maybe the antisocial effects of billionaires nonetheless justify a wealth tax -- maybe their ability to buy all of the best land and city governments justifies a tax that serves mostly to prevent their untoward influence on society -- but when considered as a way for the government to make money, I have yet to find an example of a wealth tax that works.