> also wealth generates income. So tax income types that tend to come from wealth instead. Compared with regular salary income that is heavily taxed in Europe

> also wealth generates income. So tax income types that tend to come from wealth instead. Compared with regular salary income that is heavily taxed in Europe those usually incur significantly lower tax rates (long-term capital gains tax, dividend tax, etc.). > plus taxing income is easier, less transaction costs. (no need to sell the house to pay wealth tax.) You are confused about how wealth taxes usually work. They are something you pay every year based on your total assets, not when you sell the assets (these are capital gains or property gains taxes). > of course non of these invalidate your observation about landed gentry Becoming a landed gentry is intentional end game of current asset owning classes in Europe. Let's take Sweden as a worst offender - locals sit on top of their multimillion+ property (that they either inherited with 0 inheritance tax or got with tax-deductible mortgage when prices were saner), don't pay any wealth taxes and would like immigrants to pay for their welfare state with crazy income taxes while simultaneously extracting exuberant rents from them indefinitely by making housing basically unobtainable through regular income. Mind you this isn't European-specific problem (prop 13 landed gentry says hello), but Europeans tend to have this annoying holier-then-thou attitude towards the US paired with complete lack of self-awareness.