[leetcrew]

note that I am replying to a comment asking whether I would accept an unconditional 100% inheritance tax in exchange for paying no other taxes while I'm alive.

regarding the wealth tax in general, I see no reason to prefer it over a capital gains tax. if it's not possible to eliminate the loopholes that allow very rich people to avoid paying capital gains, I don't see why the same wouldn't be true for a wealth tax. with the possible exception of LVT, I would greatly prefer to see the existing tax structures get fixed than to add an entirely new tax into the mix.

[joelhoffman]

Fair point, I misread that. But even so, the inheritance tax is still a delayed wealth tax and a 100% tax would generally be easily avoided with gifts -- still taxable, but presumably not at 100%.

(Edit: if we had a combination of capital gains + personal income tax that effectively achieved the same goal as a wealth tax, wouldn't that be basically a maximum wage? Seems even harder to sell. It seems to me the main difference would be that a capital gains tax still encourages holding on to assets and a wealth tax encourages spending.)