Comment by qzw

Only in theory. In practice it’s not equivalent at all because once you reach a certain (very high) level of wealth, there’s the “buy, borrow, die” strategy that avoids realizing most of your capital gains. I’ve also heard of proposals to tax asset-backed loans above a certain threshold, which is aimed at the “borrow” part of the strategy. But the concern there is that the super wealthy may quickly find a different strategy for tax avoidance, so a blanket wealth tax should be harder to circumvent. But as with anything to do with the tax code, those with the best tax accountants and lawyers seldom end up losing.