> Sure, companies can "sit on their money", but they already can.

Not entirely, it is taxed at least once when earned (corp earnings tax).

Personally, high capital gains tax gives me a lot of hesitation, as you actually want to encourage people to invest and not dissuade them from doing it.

Not sure exactly how this works, but Switzerland appears to be taxing total networth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Switzerland#Propert...

A very low rate would still amount to a huge sum if you consider the total networth of all US "natural persons".