Even most socialist states avoid wealth taxes (but, interestingly, have national sales taxes). The problem is twofold. First, the bureaucracy necessary to ascertain each person’s net worth would be monumental. It could well eat up more money than is collected. Second, wealth is fluid. Folks can always store their booty in precious metals and art - two old school ways of doing things which don’t allow the money to circulate through the banking and finance systems where it is available to fund borrowing and investment. I doubt the idea will ever be implemented regardless of who is president or which party is in power.
Warren has proposed a 2% wealth tax on people who earn more than $50 million and 3% on earnings above $1 billion. In exchange, she has put forth a slew of education proposals aimed at reducing inequality, making education affordable and providing greater access to special needs students.
Her proposals, though, have run into resistance, particularly on Wall Street. Cooperman told CNBC last week that if Warren is elected the stock market is likely to fall by 25%.
”Health Care, Tech, Financials and Energy are most exposed to expected regulatory pressure under her presidency,” wrote Savita Subramanian, head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy at Bank of America. “We remain Marketweight Health Care on the ongoing regulatory pressure (plus record leverage ratios). Financials looks far more attractive – regulatory pressures may be largely behind us and have only Dem support, while Health Care and Tech have received bi-partisan scrutiny.”