To me, taxing wealth and only wealth seems like the most straightforward route to a truly progressive tax system. That’s not to say it’s simple or straightforward in an absolute sense, but neither is taxing income, is it?

At a high level, taxing wealth instead of income or transactions ensures that rich people are paying their share, while maximizing upward mobility so that people can become rich more easily. Think about how much easier it would be to become wealthy without income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, taxes on corporate profits, etc. etc.

This is what we should optimize for imho: making it as easy as possible to become wealthy. Sure, there details to figure out, as with any approach, and maybe some rich people will face some difficult choices or be forced to sell assets; I’m ok with that and it seems well worth the tradeoff.