> And not just that, but typical property taxes provide a disincentive to even improve your own property, since you'll pay more tax. They encourage blight.
A good old wealth tax on everything would fix that.
Not really. If a wealth tax is implemented, you'll be amazed at how soon everyone moves their wealth outside of the US. You'd be very hard pressed to tax wealth outside the US.
Distributing the tax across property, a progressive capital gains tax, a progressive corporate tax, and a small wealth tax is a much better option than a flat and high wealth tax.
>Not really. If a wealth tax is implemented, you'll be amazed at how soon everyone moves their wealth outside of the US. You'd be very hard pressed to tax wealth outside the US.
Taxing income outside the USA already happens. Taxing wealth would also happen.
There has been a huge push in the last decade to tighten up "anti-money laundering" (but usually anti-tax) laws. The cliche of the swiss bank account offering secrecy for Americans no longer exists - the Swiss now report holdings directly to the US and similar locales do likewise.
Most OECD countries have dropped wealth taxes. They don’t work. In 1990, 12 OECD countries had wealth taxes, now, only 4. A wealth tax has a lot of unintended consequences and while it sounds good as a populist sound bite, reality isn’t so simplistic.
Distributing the tax across property, a progressive capital gains tax, a progressive corporate tax, and a small wealth tax is a much better option than a flat and high wealth tax.