Asset taxes is effectively that. But assets are a lot easier to hide than income, and there's nothing stopping wealthy people from moving somewhere else. France's asset tax is estimated to have caused large amounts of capital to leave the country.

That's why you should tax only fixed, country specific assets, such as land and intellectual property. They are protected by the government, therefore they cannot be hidden from the government.

> intellectual property

this type of property is notoriously easy to hide!

Taxing income is the least worst. The best is taxing capital gains/profits from corporations.

> this type of property is notoriously easy to hide!

Not if you want it to be protected by a patent, trademark, or copyright.

IP offshoring is a big tax avoidance strategy already. Not that it couldn't be made harder to exploit, but it's not a fait accompli to simply tax the IP resident in a country.

You tax it at the point of enforcement. If someone wants to avoid paying the tax, then everybody gets to copy their stuff for free. It seems straightforward to me.

Sure, because we don't have an asset tax. If we had an asset tax, you'd have to register your IP. If you don't register your IP, you don't get protection. Not too different from real estate; if you don't have title, you don't own it.

I haven't considered all the economic consequences of this, but it does seem like enforcement is a minor problem.

Taxing IP would be counterproductive, except as a pure revelation mechanism for "IP that its owners actually care about". The whole point of IP is to be an incentive for creative work, and taxes destroy that incentive. It's better to roll IP rights back, and/or have rigorous requirements (such as registration and archiving of the work which is to be protected), but have very limited taxation on the IP itself.

This might be a silly question but when do you think there will be a global tax? Something akin to a world government tax? The US has it to some extent when it taxes citizens outside the country but even that can be escaped.

There was someone who said something like "Don't tax money that can move." It would be interesting to see all of the countries figure out a way for it to happen anyway.

A global tax would be feasible if all governments are on good terms, and are willing to cooperate on their taxes and surveillance of assets. I do not predict this happening any time soon.

The US taxes citizens abroad, but you get to deduct taxes paid to your country of residence. Since the US has relatively low taxes, this usually means citizens abroad pay no taxes to the US. It may be more nuanced than that. I have never filed taxes while living abroad, this is just my immediate recollection.

Huh. US tax isn’t Low?!? And I think in Singapore you’re forced to pay tax. They ask you if you’re a US citizen here and treat your income tax differently. I could be wrong tho. I’m not American so I don’t need to worry about double tax.

> Huh. US tax isn’t Low?!?

I'm not sure if you read my comment correctly.

> The US taxes citizens abroad, but you get to deduct taxes paid to your country of residence. Since the US has relatively low taxes, this usually means citizens abroad pay no taxes to the US.

I am saying that taxes in the US are low, which is why citizens abroad usually don't have any more taxes to pay after deducting the taxes paid to their country of residence.

Ah ok. I Guess this only really applies to Europe where there is high tax to begin with.

I suppose that would happen as soon as there were an entity with the capability to (i.e. means of enforcement) and interest in doing so.

That would be akin to be back in serf mode. If you can't escape taxes anymore, there is nothing preventing a "worldwide government" to tax people to death. I guess this is when people may want to move to Mars or something.

France's asset tax did no such thing. The wealthy in France have received numerous tax breaks under the Macron government which is why the yellow jacket protests are happening.

France's asset tax was effectively protested by the wealthy doing what they always do - threatening to leave loudly, maybe taking some time off in one of their overseas residences, and then doing absolutely nothing.

France's asset tax is estimated to to have caused $125 billion to leave the country since 1998: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax

Far more then $6 billion / year leaves most western countries as tax avoidance schemes. It's not about whether their money left, its about whether they and their businesses left.

Which they never do (unless they were going to do it anyway - i.e. outsourcing).

The solution is LVT's on things that behave 'like land', such as intellectual property, domain names, etc.

Isn't wealth generation something that should be supported also? Tax the rentiers not the producers. Not all rich people are the same. Most high income people hide their income as capital gains, in any case.

I wonder what the total value of land is in the US compared to buildings and other assets (subtract land value from stock values) and what the tax rate would have to be to replace the income tax?