In an ideal world, maybe. Problem is that measuring wealth is a very tough game. Let's imagine you start a company. Things are going really well and you raise

In an ideal world, maybe. Problem is that measuring wealth is a very tough game. Let's imagine you start a company. Things are going really well and you raise tons of venture money at higher and higher valuations. In your most recent raise, you raised $1 billion at a $10B valuation and as founder of the company and owner of 20%, you are now worth (on paper), $2 billion. But this is all based on venture valuations, not what's in your bank account. Now say we tax wealth... how do we decide what you are worth? Maybe it's $2 billion, but you have common, not preferred shares. And in any case, you may not be able to sell shares to pay those taxes because it's not a public company. In any case, billionaires will find ways to say they are worth less. They'll buy paintings and then argue that they overpaid. They'll buy cars and yachts and claim depreciations in value. They'll invest in Romanian forests and other hard to value assets. It'll never work in practice. That's why almost no one taxes wealth and almost everyone taxes capital gains instead.