What PG describes is basically what's proposed - the main difference is that most American proposals have a floor before it kicks in.
That floor is pretty high depending on the proposal ($30-50 million), but that doesn't stop the problem of equity ownership being eaten away over time when a lot of your worth is tied up into a successful company (like Bezos).
You also get other incentive problems with things like angel investing. If someone is at the wealth cap they're less incentivized to risk money when they'll either lose it because the investment fails, or lose it because it gets eaten by the wealth tax.
Other proposals have low floors where you just have the problem of a lot of wealth getting taken.
In general it's good for a society to incentivize wealth creation/growth and still protect the lower bound of society. A wealth tax dis-incentivizes wealth creation - and for what? It just comes across to me as a 'hate the rich' policy that creates perverse incentives.
Disclosures so people don't think there's hidden motivated reasoning here:
- I'm nowhere near the wealth cap and probably never will be
- I think trump is an idiot and the republican party is a disaster
- I voted for Hillary and will vote for Biden.
I still think the wealth tax is a bad idea and bad policy.
That floor is pretty high depending on the proposal ($30-50 million), but that doesn't stop the problem of equity ownership being eaten away over time when a lot of your worth is tied up into a successful company (like Bezos).
You also get other incentive problems with things like angel investing. If someone is at the wealth cap they're less incentivized to risk money when they'll either lose it because the investment fails, or lose it because it gets eaten by the wealth tax.
Other proposals have low floors where you just have the problem of a lot of wealth getting taken.
In general it's good for a society to incentivize wealth creation/growth and still protect the lower bound of society. A wealth tax dis-incentivizes wealth creation - and for what? It just comes across to me as a 'hate the rich' policy that creates perverse incentives.
Disclosures so people don't think there's hidden motivated reasoning here:
- I'm nowhere near the wealth cap and probably never will be
- I think trump is an idiot and the republican party is a disaster
- I voted for Hillary and will vote for Biden.
I still think the wealth tax is a bad idea and bad policy.