[rufus_foreman]

I'm planning for retirement. One rule of thumb is that you can spend 4% of your investable net worth a year, there are people that say that is too high and 3% would be a safer number.

Now you want to take 1% a year in wealth taxes on top of the capital gains taxes and income taxes I would pay. So either I now have to spend 25% or 33% less a year in retirement, or I work another half decade.

I vote no. If the US state I live in did that, I would move to another state.

[yfw]

Bracketing would solve all of that. Im pretty sure the spirit of this is not to tax working class people into relying on a pension.

Im sure everyone agrees Jeff Bezos shouldnt be taxed the same as someone who needs retirement planning

[tpmoney]

Perhaps, but the Norway tax mentioned in the article kicks in at $174k net worth. That's a paid off house and a nearly drained 401k for even the poorest of Americans. Yes there is an exemption for part of the house, but even if it were 100% exempt, I think you're going to have a rough time getting support for taxing 1% of a retirement account worth less than the code section it's named for.

[tpmoney]

Replying to myself since it's too late to edit, but according to these numbers[1], it looks like this tax would hit about 52% of American households, so my "even the poorest of Americans" is a bit overwrought. And if we take the US median home price (~410k as of this year[2]) and exclude 75% of that (~307k), then this tax would hit ~30% of American households (~$481k net worth). Even at that, it's still quite a hurdle to clear to convince the top 1/3 of households support a 1% tax on their accumulated wealth.

[1]: https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/ [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

[rini17]

You would vote no even if you got free healthcare in exchange?

[rufus_foreman]

"Free" health care paid for by whom?

"Free" health care paid for by people richer than me? There aren't enough of them to pay for all us slackers. "Free" health care pair for by people poorer than me? That's actually probably what is going to happen if I retire early.

I vote no.

If a majority votes yes, does that absolve me of guilt that poor people are paying for my early retirement?

I vote yes!

[rini17]

What a hell you have there, public goods like healthcare or transport are impossible unless paid by the poor?