Wealth isn't taxed because most wealth, unlike income or other use taxes, are based on valuations that are extremely fragile.
Let's say you open a corner bakery that does very well. You are making $1m/year and paying the government $200k/yr in corporation taxes. That leaves $800k/yr in the biz. A perpetuity paying $800k/yr at 5% discount rate is worth $16m (obviously this is a bad proxy for the value of a risky business, but it's a starting point).
So the government comes along and says "ok you owe us X% of this business per year". Where do you get the money for this? You can't just give the government shares. But it's a corner bakery...nobody wants to go through the headache of buying 1% in a local business. And what happens next year when business drops, and the value drops, how do you prove to the govt what it's worth? It's a minefield, and probably not legal.
I get it. People want to eat the rich. It's easier to point to other people as the problem (even if they pay 40x more proportionately in tax than someone else) instead of saying "Christ, maybe we spend too much". But the ideas to kick the can are really getting silly.
I think I get it, but it doesn't help the image that there are some who are so obviously abusing the system.
Everybody knows who they are. Everybody can see what they're doing, how they're using their position to avoid putting anything back in to the society that's made them all that wealth. And nobody can point to something and say "There! That exact thing right there they're doing should be illegal! Make a law!".
Let's say you open a corner bakery that does very well. You are making $1m/year and paying the government $200k/yr in corporation taxes. That leaves $800k/yr in the biz. A perpetuity paying $800k/yr at 5% discount rate is worth $16m (obviously this is a bad proxy for the value of a risky business, but it's a starting point).
So the government comes along and says "ok you owe us X% of this business per year". Where do you get the money for this? You can't just give the government shares. But it's a corner bakery...nobody wants to go through the headache of buying 1% in a local business. And what happens next year when business drops, and the value drops, how do you prove to the govt what it's worth? It's a minefield, and probably not legal.
I get it. People want to eat the rich. It's easier to point to other people as the problem (even if they pay 40x more proportionately in tax than someone else) instead of saying "Christ, maybe we spend too much". But the ideas to kick the can are really getting silly.