Luxury taxes are bad because supply is less elastic than demand, so the tax incidence falls on suppliers. In other words, the working class people building the airplanes pay the tax because the rich can just not buy them.

K.I.S.S. Tax wealth. Tax the only thing they really care about. Making them notice isn’t just more satisfying; it’s better economics.

That’s not good enough because the vast majority of their wealth will never be spent. It will just be used to accumulate more wealth.

That’s why all of these billionaires have real tax rates in the low single digits (or less). Even with opulent spending habits they keep most of their gains unrealized, so they are never taxed.

Every year, your total assets are assessed and every red cent required to bring you to below 1 billion dollars is taken.

IF you ended up getting taxed at this rate, a bench gets installed in a public park with a small placard having your name on it. You get to pick the park.

Who needs a billion though? Cut that down to like 100 mil, or even 50.

Realistically, even if enacted, would be tricky to implement, and would definitely have to be done slowly not to shock the economy.

I think this also means creating a system where companies beyond a certain size cannot be privately owned and must be governed by large “committees”, since beyond a certain evaluation, concentrated controlling entities would be forced to sell off.

Long shot research and development (e.g. think employing thousands for a decade, like drug development) could probably be harder to get started, but at the same time less corruptible due to spreading out power.

I do think spreading out power can be a good thing, but I have to acknowledge that would probably make the government much more powerful (i.e. corruptible) by comparison.

Also, a lot of wealth is tied up in non-liquid assets, so these billionaires would be forced/incentivized to hold more liquid value – who’d want to hold something that can be capped one year only to have it fall the next?

So on one hand, a ton of market value disappears from the economy due to increased supply, yet on the other a ton of hoarded value is unlocked to circulate in the economy.

Anyway, don’t know where I’m going with this, I’m not an expert by any means.

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If only they could appreciate the absolute and compounding value of that

I honestly find it hard to believe that there is a meaningful difference in lifestyle if you make over $10m a year vs over $100m. So you can afford a bigger boat faster? Save and seethe on your new money dingy.

I fully support a unavoidable progressive tax that taxes every dollar above $10m in a year at 100% and nobody that hits that will suffer or be less motivated in the slightest.