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I stopped reading when I hit: > wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_ I have not seen a single wealth tax prop

I stopped reading when I hit: > wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_ I have not seen a single wealth tax proposal that doesn't have a gigantic cutoff where it would do nothing for 99%+ of the taxpayer base. Most proposals have a floor in the tens of millions.

dannykwells 6y ago
You stopped reading...and missed the whole point. The idea was, to say if a tax doesn't apply to someone you still need to do a deep valuation of their assets. Someone could hide 10M in a painting and live in a regular house, have regular "income".
- adverbly 6y ago
  Different issue. What you are describing is tax fraud and is already possible in the current system.
matthew-hale 6y ago
You could've read the very next sentence, which makes the point the first sentence set up: > Assets must be accounted for when calculating wealth, so the tax service will be required to track and value assets including vehicles, homes, and material good etc. for every citizen to see if the wealth tax would apply to them -- if we didn't report material goods, the wealthy could sock money away in expensive cars, artworks, jewelry and other material non-real-estate assets as they already do for investment.
- adverbly 6y ago
  What you are describing is tax fraud and is already possible in the current system.
timerol 6y ago
The burden is showing that you have under $XM in assets. You'll need to show your net worth somehow, so that the IRS (or equivalent) knows not to tax you. Otherwise I could assure you that I totally only have $1M in assets, with definitely no Swiss bank account or yachts. I will admit to not knowing much about a wealth tax, so maybe there is an established solution here. But it seems like the default would be a privacy and administrative burden even on those people not paying the tax.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  It wouldn't be a burden for most people; it would just be a yes/no checkbox alongside the many other checkboxes when you're filling out your taxes. "Do you have assets in excess of $X million?" If you claim you don't, and the IRS has reason to suspect you do, you're opening yourself to a brutal audit and potential jail time. Most people would not have to deal with this.
  - davrosthedalek 6y ago
    Yes, and then the IRS would say, well, to check that, we need more access to all the data in the world. And people will sell it with "so that we can find the criminal rich people". But they will have the data for everybody.
Negitivefrags 6y ago
Perhaps you should have continued reading because then you would have understood his point. It doesn’t matter what the floor is, you still have to report all your assets to the IRS to prove you don’t meet it.
- adverbly 6y ago
  In many countries, reporting high value assets is already part of their tax reporting and is not an added step. For countries that don't, the added step could be as simple as a single checkbox: Do you have over 25M in assets? I'd imagine most people can confidently leave that unchecked.
nickpp 6y ago
You need to track every single taxpayer continuously just to know if that cutoff was reached.
- adverbly 6y ago
  lol ya tracking everyone would be really dumb but you don't need to do it. Many countries already have self reported high value assets as part of their tax filing process. Pretty easy to add a self-reporting step "Do you have over $25M in assets"? Most people can confidently leave that unchecked so they don't even need to waste any ink. Lying would be tax fraud and is already possible in the current system anyways.

dannykwells 6y ago

You stopped reading...and missed the whole point. The idea was, to say if a tax doesn't apply to someone you still need to do a deep valuation of their assets. Someone could hide 10M in a painting and live in a regular house, have regular "income".

adverbly 6y ago
Different issue. What you are describing is tax fraud and is already possible in the current system.

matthew-hale 6y ago

You could've read the very next sentence, which makes the point the first sentence set up: > Assets must be accounted for when calculating wealth, so the tax service will be required to track and value assets including vehicles, homes, and material good etc. for every citizen to see if the wealth tax would apply to them -- if we didn't report material goods, the wealthy could sock money away in expensive cars, artworks, jewelry and other material non-real-estate assets as they already do for investment.

adverbly 6y ago
What you are describing is tax fraud and is already possible in the current system.

timerol 6y ago

The burden is showing that you have under $XM in assets. You'll need to show your net worth somehow, so that the IRS (or equivalent) knows not to tax you. Otherwise I could assure you that I totally only have $1M in assets, with definitely no Swiss bank account or yachts. I will admit to not knowing much about a wealth tax, so maybe there is an established solution here. But it seems like the default would be a privacy and administrative burden even on those people not paying the tax.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
It wouldn't be a burden for most people; it would just be a yes/no checkbox alongside the many other checkboxes when you're filling out your taxes. "Do you have assets in excess of $X million?" If you claim you don't, and the IRS has reason to suspect you do, you're opening yourself to a brutal audit and potential jail time. Most people would not have to deal with this.
- davrosthedalek 6y ago
  Yes, and then the IRS would say, well, to check that, we need more access to all the data in the world. And people will sell it with "so that we can find the criminal rich people". But they will have the data for everybody.

Negitivefrags 6y ago

Perhaps you should have continued reading because then you would have understood his point. It doesn’t matter what the floor is, you still have to report all your assets to the IRS to prove you don’t meet it.

adverbly 6y ago
In many countries, reporting high value assets is already part of their tax reporting and is not an added step. For countries that don't, the added step could be as simple as a single checkbox: Do you have over 25M in assets? I'd imagine most people can confidently leave that unchecked.

nickpp 6y ago

You need to track every single taxpayer continuously just to know if that cutoff was reached.

adverbly 6y ago
lol ya tracking everyone would be really dumb but you don't need to do it. Many countries already have self reported high value assets as part of their tax filing process. Pretty easy to add a self-reporting step "Do you have over $25M in assets"? Most people can confidently leave that unchecked so they don't even need to waste any ink. Lying would be tax fraud and is already possible in the current system anyways.