> Nobody is talking about a wealth tax on someone with a net worth of ~$200k or ~$400k.
If that were the case the criticism of Paul Graham's reasoning would be wrong to begin with because the only people paying it would be the people who do get most of their income from investments.
Moreover, your proposal doesn't actually work. If corporations don't pay a wealth tax then rich people just put their assets into corporations that they control but don't formally own (there are many ways to do this). But if they do then ordinary people with ordinary retirement savings can't be spared, since it doesn't change your finances to have the companies your retirement savings are invested in give you lower returns by the amount they pay in wealth tax than to have you pay a wealth tax out of the returns.
They don't even have to change the number. Per capita GDP growth and inflation cause the same number to impact more ordinary people over time by doing nothing.
> Nobody is talking about a wealth tax on someone with a net worth of ~$200k or ~$400k.
If that were the case the criticism of Paul Graham's reasoning would be wrong to begin with because the only people paying it would be the people who do get most of their income from investments.
Moreover, your proposal doesn't actually work. If corporations don't pay a wealth tax then rich people just put their assets into corporations that they control but don't formally own (there are many ways to do this). But if they do then ordinary people with ordinary retirement savings can't be spared, since it doesn't change your finances to have the companies your retirement savings are invested in give you lower returns by the amount they pay in wealth tax than to have you pay a wealth tax out of the returns.
When income tax was first implemented, less then 1% of people had to pay it. Taxes are a slippery slope, and that number will slide down.
They don't even have to change the number. Per capita GDP growth and inflation cause the same number to impact more ordinary people over time by doing nothing.
We don't know, actually. If the threshold for "wealth" is set to be >100k, then we are.
And almost nobody will support that. It would be political suicide for any lawmaker to implement that.