Property taxes are a thing. If Joe Dirt has to pay property taxes for the home he shelters in, the wealthy should have to pay property taxes for the shares of a company that they use to secure loans for yachts and Ferraris.
And land is something of finite quantity that is actually taken away from the rest of society. Capital is produced, and made, and is not finite like land.
This is one thing that California got really wrong, it should be taxing land heavily, and income less.
Wouldn't that inflate housing prices even more? Which disproportionally affect those in the bottom 90% or so.
I still think property taxes on stocks should be a thing. Americans pay income taxes from foreign sources, so why shouldn’t the rich also pay the same for overseas investments? Just close the loopholes with simpler tax laws. That could be like saying it isn’t hard to program some feature into software, though, so perhaps not.
Example: “Thou shalt pay 0% of all income and assets up to 20k, 10% to 50k, …, and 95% on up to 20mm.”
> why shouldn’t the rich also pay the same for overseas investments?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_erosion_and_profit_shif...
The problem is that people will always probe the tax code for loopholes that weren't considered. It's a cat and mouse game, except the cat is fat and lazy, and gets paid by the mouse.
Sure, a billionaire could then use their $143M estate as collateral on a loan to avoid realizing the capital gains, loophole, but since you can only have one primary home, it's a very limited loophole.