this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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Inventing Reality
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The problem with a wealth tax is the feasibility of the tax. Every time it's ever been tried it has failed. Expecting the IRS to be able to accurately appraise everything a wealthy person owns is a tall task. As soon as you allow an exception, the wealthy avoid taxes by putting their money into that exception.
Alright, no exceptions
Okay, hire a shit ton more IRS agents and expect tax seasons to last forever as everyone gets literally everything they own appraised.
Lol, if less complicated, that is, if there are no exceptions, then you need fewer agents
Worth it
The solution then is to abolish private ownership so that people cannot become wealthy by exploiting the labor of others in the first place.
Think about what you're saying. Nobody should be allowed to own anything? No books, no art, no jewelry, no anything. Because literally anything can be made to be luxury and become a store of value.
I have thought about what I'm saying. The problem is you don't understand what I'm saying, but I did just kinda throw it out there with no explanation (because we're on lemmy.ml, I didn't think I needed to). I am referring to private property in the Marxian sense, where a distinction is made between private and personal property. All of the things you listed are personal property, not private property. In Marxian economics private property refers to the means of production privately owned and involved in an economic enterprise employing wage labor (i.e. factories, offices, farms) while personal property refers to consumer goods or goods produced by an individual (i.e. books, art, jewelry). What I was presenting as a solution is the abolishment of the former and not the latter, replacing private ownership instead with collective or public ownership (when workers share ownership of their tools and place of work - the means of production). This is the core idea of all anti-capitalist ideologies, though it was first articulated in this way by anarchists.
So tax their income and asset movements to pay for an appraisal service? And carve out exceptions for non-luxuries like primary residence and farm equipment? Seems straightforward to me, but I'm far from an expert.
Build a primary residence the size of a city and sell parts of it to the poor class you keep homeless when you need to liquidate, easy
"Size of a city" should come with pretty hefty property tax I'd think. And billionaires love to be jetsetters so I image very few would want to stick to a single residence just to save on taxes.
I don't buy that.