[rm2889]

Taxing unrealized capital gains? So someone like Bezos who's annual increase in wealth is in the form of amazon stock, would have to sell that stock to actually have the liquid cash to pay for this tax? Come tax season wouldn't it lead to a bunch of founders having to flood the stock market with their stock, hence a large decrease in the stock price and consequently lower taxable amount? Hence a self defeating tax?

Then there's the inflation question. If CPI is 3%, and my capital gains amounts to 6% of my portfolio, my real increase in wealth is only 3%. But I pay tax on 6%?

[burlesona]

I’m not endorsing the idea, but just thinking about how it would play out...

I suspect that for the reasons you just gave, you’d see a quick transition in the marketplace where companies stopped paying high-end roles largely via stock, and founders like Bezos greatly reduced their personal holdings.

If they’re trying to target only the top 0.1% it would probably have some floor like the first $1M per year that is exempt.

But yeah this would seem like it would very much punish concentrated ownership of large companies.

In reality though it would probably ha e some stupid loophole like it only applies to individuals so then people could avoid it by transferring their stock to intermediate LLCs or something.

[ianai]

Increased stock flow not tied to the CEO’s utility of wealth and possibly opening opportunities for other people to buy stocks at a lower value but likely to rebound? Sounds like a boon for the market and smaller traders.

[joeyrideout]

It's particularly self-defeating if it scares away foreign investors (or scares local investors out of the country), causing a net decrease in tax revenues from the lost business.