Generations of Americans have had the hope that they have a chance to build a fortune if they work hard. The American Dream is a fundamental to our country’s self image.
Taxing income undermines the American Dream. Income taxes take from those who are currently working hard and investing to grow our country. We should completely remove income taxes.
We should tax wealth instead. The children of wealthy people are often recognized to be lazy, scummy, and entitled. These are the people who should be taxed – not hard working entrepreneurs and the general workforce. Wealth is just money that is not doing any work. If you own wealth, you should invest it and try to earn returns. If you don’t invest wisely, that money should be taxed and reinvested elsewhere.
A tax of only 1.5% on financial assets like stocks and real estate and vehicles would more than replace the revenue generated by all income taxes.
The vast majority of American families would receive a MASSIVE tax cut from this. Most would pay nothing. Instead, useless people like Alice Walton (daughter of Sam Walton who drove drunk and also killed a pedestrian while speeding) would pay taxes.
The toughest part of this tax would be liquidity (some people couldn’t easily sell part of their wealth to pay the tax) and valuation (how do you value an item that has not been sold in 30 years?).
I did a Google search and here are some articles that also advocate this idea: