With wealth inequality and billionaire control over American society growing ever more obscene, it’s well past time to implement a maximum wage limit.
With wealth inequality and billionaire control over American society growing ever more obscene, it’s well past time to implement a maximum wage limit.
Real estate is a good example of the trickiest thing about “simple” wealth tax.
I bought a house, and 20 years later I have to pay more taxes because my neighbourhood is more desirable?
Okay, easy solution, you get one free house you need to reside in for x% of your time per year.
But say I bought a painting from a local artist, even a friend, and decades go by and they’ve gone on to become ultra famous. Do I now have to pay more tax because I possess something that has become valuable?
Obviously thats a very unlikely scenario, but you can see the principle issue.
For the numbers I suggested, I don’t think you’d realistically hit these types of cases.
1000x annual minimum wage is $14.5 million. Based on a quick search, the threshold for the top 1% of Americans with respect to net worth starts at $13.6 million in 2023. So over 98% of Americans would never see the impact of a wealth tax like this.
If minimum wage were brought up to a realistic level, say $20/hour (still low, but better than the current $7.25), that threshold jumps to $40 million. This would capture somewhere between the top 0.5% and 0.1%. This is excessive wealth.
In the case where your painting is suddenly worth $50 million, yes–you’d have to pay more tax. But I think that many dollars might be some reprieve from the pain of selling it.
Applying sensible economic policy to extreme wealth is easier than general economic policy.
I had a public policy professor who used to say wealth taxes frequently come with loopholes you can pilot a yacht through