The problem with a wealth tax is that it's essentially retroactive. Instead of taxing income and capital gains at the time they're accrued, you tax them later - long after the individuals who accrued them have had the chance to make rational decisions based on that tax rate. This seems inherently unfair to me, a form of bait and switch, especially combined with the intention to hunt down former California residents up to a decade after they've left the state (thereby further denying them any opportunity to make rational decisions).

How is it a bait and switch? Seems like that kind of framing would apply to the introduction of any new tax which seems immature to me.

I do hope the 10 year thing takes into account how long you’ve been in the state and how much you earned within the state.

Remember. You’re only getting taxed on the amount over >30mil in assets (first 30 million isn’t taxable). That’s quite a lot of money before a very small tax begins to be levied.

I do hope there’s also allowances for income tied up in illiquid investments (eg private business investments). I would also worry about taxation on net worth that hasn’t been realized (eg private company that does a valuation that suddenly puts you over the 30 mil threshold). These seem like important nuances that could quickly torpedo any benefits.

What can look like a very small tax is not at all small when applied repeatedly (annually).

As an example a popular “Just two cents” plan takes a third of the value of a taxed base in 20 years and by 35 years, the government has received over half.

Does your example assume the asset will grow in value? Wealth taxes get big as they compound, but that also shows the compounding value of assets.

That is simple math assuming no change of the taxed wealth value (which could go up, down, or stay the same).

IMO, "small" wealth taxes "get big" because they take repeated bites at the same apple.

Government take [via wealth tax] in the example above is the result of 1 - (1 - taxrate) ^ years.

  1 - (1 - 0.02) ^ 20 = 0.3323 ; (20 years => 33%)
  1 - (1 - 0.02) ^ 35 = 0.5069 ; (35 years => 51%)

Assuming no change to taxed wealth value is a huge assumption. A better baseline assumption would be a conservative mix of index funds, IMO, which would result in 3-4% return IIRC.

Assuming 3.5% growth (the midpoint of your proposed range) on all funds, the government share after 20 years is 27.3% and after 35 years is 36.7%.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_k6sFrBAjwpJbXKHmpNA...

Okay, this is interesting. Let's play out a scenario.

Take a 45-year-old who's worked hard and gotten very lucky. They've earned $50 million from an IPO and are retiring early. How much money can they spend per year, before and after the wealth tax?

Just to keep it interesting, I'm proposing this scenario before running the numbers.

Assumptions:

1. Death at 90, no money left over.

2. Money invested very conservatively with 3.5% return.

3. No income, so no income tax or capital gains tax [1].

4. Inflation is 1.76% (average of last 10 years [2]).

5. Wealth tax is 0.4% applied to wealth in excess of $30mm.

With the wealth tax, our lucky devil can spend $1,509,000 every year. That's inflation adjusted, so when they turn 90, they're spending $3.3mm per year.

Without the wealth tax, they can spend $45K more: $1,554,000 per year (inflation adjusted).

I don't know about you, but if I had $1.51mm in spending money per year, I wouldn't be sweating the extra $0.05mm. It seems like a reasonable cost to me, and very low compared what you'd pay in income tax.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fV9pip51Z-qqRUG3pDEc...

[1] I may have misunderstood how capital gains are taxed when you have no other income. I don't think it detracts from the overall point, though.

[2] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infl...

Good math. Note that this scenario is using the 80% lower CA wealth tax proposal, not the "just two cents" wealth tax that was proposed during the DNC primary race earlier this year that I was using (as openly/clearly disclosed).

Sorry, I missed that. I think it's a bit disingenuous to use a year-old proposal from a failed primary candidate, though, rather than the actual wealth tax under discussion.

However, if we were to use Warren's proposal, our lucky millionaire would be unaffected, because it doesn't kick in until $50mm. (A happy coincidence.)

If I run the numbers again, using a very lucky millionaire with $100mm in assets, it comes out as follows:

1. Warren wealth tax: $2,613,000 yearly spending power

2. CA wealth tax: $2,939,000 yearly spending power

3. No wealth tax: $3,104,000 yearly spending power

Warren's proposal is much more aggressive about leveling wealth inequality, especially considering that it jumps to 6% for billionaires. I'm not convinced it was a serious proposal, though, given that it was part of Warren's campaign rhetoric. I think she's serious about a wealth tax, but I suspect the specific proposal was a starting point in the bargaining process—an attempt to shift the Overton window, if you will—not the expected outcome.

Your wealth is not decreasing in this scenario. You have ~30% more apples.

What people (wealth tax supporters) are really trying to do is tax unrealized gains that compound because there are no transactions to tax. Dubious legally for the U.S. but not onerous if structured right.

I don’t think anyone is objecting to California levying property tax on property in California, similar to the Roman property tax. (Property taxes are a form of wealth tax indeed, but when someone proposes a “wealth tax” today, they probably specifically do not mean a tax based on property value, but rather on net wealth.)

Taxes on net wealth and particularly net wealth held outside California by non-residents of California represent a material different case in my mind and one which I’d hope would not be found constitutional.