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Comment by smallgovt | Hacker News Reader

My guess is that you're the one misunderstanding the math here.

At a 1% wealth tax, you will end up being 45% less wealthy in 40 years than you would be without the wealth tax.

There is a 100% cap on what the government can take from you. And, with a 1% wealth tax, they are taking 45% of it (spread over 40 years).

Put another way, the 1% wealth tax is similar to a 45% capital gains tax (where the cap is also 100%). Capital gains is just more front-loaded (paid upon liquidation) whereas wealth tax is paid over time.

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And every dollar that I pay in income taxes makes me less wealthy in 40 years since I am at the point that every marginal dollar I make is invested. We all need to pay taxes and need to do so in proportion with our ability to do so, whether that is income, sales, property, excise, import, impact, sin, payroll, wealth, estate, or otherwise. We are running $1,000,000,000,000+ deficits every year in this country because people think they are taxed too much despite having the lowest tax rates in modern history, what utter hogwash.

I’m not misunderstanding anything, but that’s a cool way to blaze into a convo lol. Most/borderline all of these plans kick in above income thresholds, ie you dip down below 50M and you’re not paying the tax. So that’s one way you’re not getting 45%. The other way is that asset growth will play a huge role in how this tax effects you. The only way to get the 45% number is to say your assets didnt grow in 60 years, which is not realistic. In fact if your assets are growing even around average rates over 60 years you could pay in huge excess of the original principal, while also making a killing.

> The only way to get the 45% number is to say your assets didnt grow in 60 years, which is not realistic.

This is the misunderstanding I'm pointing out. You will end up being 45% less wealthy regardless of whether your assets grow or not. If your assets grow YoY, you will still end up being 45% less wealthy bc your YoY gains are also taxed by the 1% wealth tax.

I get it (and don’t know why i went down this road on a whim). My (original) point was that at something like 8% avg return you’re up 5900% over 60 years instead of being 10900% up.

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