[yabones]

For the vast majority of human civilization, all taxes were based on wealth. Your emperor, pharaoh, czar, or whoever was in charge sent a dude around to take a bit of everybody's stuff. Not how much income they made but how much stuff they actually had. It's only been the last 120-ish years that the idea that wealth and income were totally different things as far as taxation is concerned emerged.

I think almost everybody would be better off if taxes were something like 1% of total assets rather than off the top of your income.

[pie_flavor]

This sounds completely made up. The medieval taxman has no idea how much gold you have squirreled away, and even finding everyone to tax them was hard enough. Most peasant taxes were based on productive land and observable yields thereof, and the rest were import/export duties. IE income and not wealth, because nobody was stupid enough to implement a negative growth rate until the 21st century (unless they were actively trying to loot holdings for redistribution, e.g. varlık vergisi)

[anon84873628]

Window tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

[nerdsniper]

I think that could generally work domestically, as in, "I don't have anything to give you, I gave/lost it all to Bob...go get it from him". But it would need to be modified with a tax on any wealth leaving the country/jurisdiction, so I can't just make $1B and then send it all to my aunt in $COUNTRY / $STATE / $CITY with low/no wealth taxes and then claim that I don't have any wealth (unless there were sensible reciprocity agreements for tax revenue reapportionment).

-----

But I'm not sure if your historical claims are accurate. I believe a lot of taxes were a fraction of the expected yield of land, which is more complicated than just "taxing wealth vs. income". Yes, the taxes would go up if you owned more land, which sounds like a tax on wealth. But the imputed tax base would be based on historical yields (income) because the quality of the soil would vary (which also could be construed as a tax on wealth because higher quality soil meant land might be worth more per acre). It was also based on the weather during that growing season, if yields were down in that area then taxes would be lower that year, which sounds more like an income tax than a wealth tax.

You also said "its only been about 120 years since wealth and income were different":

The Christian tithe that became de jury under Charlemagne in 779 A.D. was a strict 10% tax on land yield each year (~income tax) but other empires and lords used fixed quotas (~wealth tax), and records exist that these could have brutal effects during years where weather resulted in lower yields.

There was the 600-year long sales tax on salt in France, which definitely wasn't a wealth tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabelle

In 1899 the UK instituted a 10% levy on annual incomes over £200, with a graduated rate for incomes between £60 and £200. Income taxes had a hiatus from 1816-1842 but has been permanent since the "Income Tax Act of 1842".

The Mit'a (Inca Empire, Pre-1532) taxed individuals "time". Which I think most people would consider kind of an income tax - it's literally paid in labor. Adult men had to spend a certain number of days each year working on state projects - like building roads, farming state lands, or fighting in the army. They didn't have currency. Their economy was based on centralized planning, labor taxation (mit'a), and state redistribution of goods.

The Saladin Tithe taxed revenues at 10% in 1188.

[thunky]

> I think almost everybody would be better off if taxes were something like 1% of total assets rather than off the top of your income

No thanks. Any discussion about tax reform has to start with government spending otherwise it's not serious. Nobody wants to give away a slice of their net worth to pay for bullshit wars and ballrooms.

[BrenBarn]

> Any discussion about tax reform has to start with government spending otherwise it's not serious.

I'd say almost the reverse. What we need most in terms of "tax reform" is to move away from thinking about taxes as solely a means of funding government operations, and towards thinking about taxes as a way of directly redistributing wealth. That is, the revenues of a wealth tax could simply be given to the non-wealthy as direct payments (possibly in the form of refundable tax credits). Unavoidably there will be some overhead, but there doesn't need to be anything for the money to be "spent on"; it can just be straight-up given to different people than those who paid it.

[thunky]

Totally agree but its not the reverse of what I said, you're still talking about changing how the government spends money.

[BrenBarn]

I would say the way to think about it is that the revenue from this tax is never the government's money. They are just administering the transfer of it from some individuals to others.

[thunky]

We're splitting hairs but imo if the government takes money from bob and gives it to joe they own the money on between those two steps. The taxing -> spending plumbing is exactly the same as it is now.

And if you disagree with that look at social security which is supposed to be your money but clearly it is not.

[tyg13]

> Nobody wants to give away a slice of their net worth to pay for bullshit wars and ballrooms.

The vast majority of people in America are already doing this, because their wealth is entirely derived from their income. Your complaint isn't relevant to the discussion of wealth vs income taxes.

[thunky]

> The vast majority of people in America are already doing this, because their wealth is entirely derived from their income

Derived is not the same thing. Not even close.

Then why stop at 1%? Why not fork over half of your possessions to the government every year and let them spend it for you, if you trust them so much?

And by the way we already have a wealth tax. Its called inflation.

[AnimalMuppet]

Inflation is only a wealth tax if you invest in cash. If you invest in stocks, real estate, and sometimes other things (gold, bonds, art) then your wealth grows faster than inflation.

[thunky]

> If you invest in stocks, real estate, and sometimes other things (gold, bonds, art) then your wealth grows faster than inflation

Aka put your wealth at risk or watch it disappear.

And the larger point is that runaway govt spending makes it disappear faster.

[tyg13]

Why not eliminate tax entirely, then? Is that a conclusion you'd support?

[thunky]

If the choice is between giving the govt an portion of my net worth, a portion of my income, or nothing, I'll choose nothing. But that's not really an option is it?

[themafia]

We have property tax, sales tax and inheritance tax.

We also have mountains of loopholes through all of these.

If you can afford a tax attourney your outcomes will be far better than those who cannot.

[adabyron]

A lot of the loopholes are really simple. You don't need a sophisticated tax scheme, just enough money to do the simple ones.

[noitpmeder]

How about we just get rid of all the fucking loopholes

[arzig]

For the vast majority of human history, only the ultra wealthy had any money. And then, just as now, taxing only those people would not yield sufficient resources to fund the state.

The problem is, and always will be, what happens to me is I am out of work. No one wants to force people to liquidate assets they might need to work, live, etc in order to pay an asset tax.

Then you get to the dividing line of, but what about the ultra wealthy? Well, sure, but then you write an insanely obtuse tax code to try and capture that wealth while leaving everyone else alone and the targets are highly motivated to find loopholes.

Progressives intuitively understand that it’s not worth the hassle to try and means test entitlements yet seem to miss the fact that trying to manage a confiscatory bureaucracy would have the same issues.

[shigawire]

>trying to manage a confiscatory bureaucracy would have the same issues

It would be a cat and mouse game but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Like how funding the IRS appropriately increases government revenue.

[arzig]

Yes. And so we have the IRS whose enforcement measures fall disproportionately upon the disadvantaged and which is the only law enforcement agency permitted to open proceedings against citizens without evidence of wrong doing. I would hold this up as the archetypal bad example.

[pocksuppet]

This is an intentional policy decision by those in charge of IRS funding - not a side effect of anything.

[tekne]

Obligatory land value tax mention