The reason I gave that example is that enforcement takes real work and a large bureaucracy.
Seriously enforcing a wealth tax would mean ten times the number of revenue agents in any jurisdiction—that is not realistic.
Btw the wealthy will be a hundred times more clever than the relatively small number of Cuban cigar vendors and hobbyists.
I have written before about my wealthy relative who is an art collector. He has tax attorneys who live to figure out schemes to avoid taxation—and they are off the charts brilliant folks—when they are not helping to write the tax code to create loopholes they are ten steps ahead of any proposed legislation in any relevant jurisdiction.
Governments are way outmatched in this area.
“Seriously enforcing a wealth tax would mean ten times the number of revenue agents in any jurisdiction—that is not realistic.”
Really?
They look for any excuse to increase the bureaucracies, and the prospect of collecting hundreds of billions of new taxes is downright irresistable.
That’s why you’re reading more and more about it. And the way they plan to sell it is that it’s just for the evil rich... just like the original income tax was only for the rich.