The distinction between wealth and property seems pretty fuzzy here and it's hard to clearly reason about this without addressing it. Property taxes are a great example - you're paying them on things like houses to support local infrastructure, right? And you still have the property afterward.
So let's say you don't want to pay a wealth tax on the money in your bank account - buy a house with it. Now you're not paying a wealth tax, because it's a house instead of US dollars. Instead, you're paying a property tax! If the wealth tax is too onerous you can just park that wealth in a house or something instead, maybe rent the house out (with the help of a management company) and make money off it. That's good, right? Get the economy going, create jobs, and you get a return on your investment.
To me even if a wealth tax isn't the right solution here (I'm not convinced, and I'm not sure it's feasible to implement), the distinction between "wealth" and "taxable property" is kind of arbitrary nonsense at this point.
If everyone is taxed fairly, you can eliminate lots of means testing and systemic complexity because everyone's paying in so everyone has equal right to access all of the systems and benefits a functioning state can have to offer, whether it's health care, public transit, education, etc.
So let's say you don't want to pay a wealth tax on the money in your bank account - buy a house with it. Now you're not paying a wealth tax, because it's a house instead of US dollars. Instead, you're paying a property tax! If the wealth tax is too onerous you can just park that wealth in a house or something instead, maybe rent the house out (with the help of a management company) and make money off it. That's good, right? Get the economy going, create jobs, and you get a return on your investment.
To me even if a wealth tax isn't the right solution here (I'm not convinced, and I'm not sure it's feasible to implement), the distinction between "wealth" and "taxable property" is kind of arbitrary nonsense at this point.
If everyone is taxed fairly, you can eliminate lots of means testing and systemic complexity because everyone's paying in so everyone has equal right to access all of the systems and benefits a functioning state can have to offer, whether it's health care, public transit, education, etc.