Comment by jabl
8 hours ago
That is true, but on the other hand if you had to pay a hefty yearly property or wealth tax you might not be able to afford it in the sense that your wealth is bound up in the house.
The counter is of course that when you buy a house you should make sure you have enough income and/or liquid wealth so that you can pay the taxes. And if not, move to a smaller house. Of course, opponents of such taxation will then roll out all kinds of grannies living in mansions on meager pensions. Then again, is it fair that this prices out younger people from the property market?
As difficult as they are, I do think we'll need some form of wealth taxation in order to put a brake on spiraling inequality. Yes, call me a fan of Piketty if you want.
A wealth tax is just a warning shot to your wealthy neighbors, if they can afford to flee, they'll flee.
If you're planning a peasant revolt you should really consider going all-in, bloody revolution, you give the kulaks less time & space to plan for contingencies.
They said millionaires would flee when Massachusetts implemented an income tax surcharge. The amount collected from that tax was in fact more than expected.
If the wealthy in California were willing to give up quality of life to save an amount that's not very meaningful to them, they'd have already moved to Texas. Or North Dakota. Or even Washington, which is an actual small-government state without a personal income tax.
People really want to push wealth taxes to the point of confusing income and wealth taxes, and assuming the willingness to accept an income tax surcharge equates to a willingness to accept a wealth tax, when we have lots of data showing that whenever you tax capital that is mobile (e.g., not real estate) then you get less taxes than you expected as well as capital flight.
It's annoying to list your income, but people do it because the disclosure is limited to one year, and more importantly they can control their income, particularly whatever income is earned in a given state. Only realized income is taxed. But a wealth tax involves questions of valuation - of taxing unrealized gains -- that are in many ways arbitrary and subject to abuse, and a level of disclosure and state control that makes many people feel uncomfortable due to the massive expansion of state power it requires.
I don't know why people are so stubborn about this. Next up, they will argue that because people accepted a higher sales tax, they will accept a higher wealth tax, too. After all, you let the state mandate childhood vaccines, so you should be OK with the state mandating your diet, right? Anyways, we'll see how things work in out in California. The state already has massive deficit problems, so let's see how this addresses their fiscal problems.