should we be taxing earnings...or should we be taxing wealth?

[Nye Bevan]

29. With this approach, the very rich would end up holding their wealth as gold bars in basement vaults,

along with fine art, jewelry, and so on. Would you have IRS agents forcibly search people's residences looking for valuable paintings etc.?

Business structures would become vastly more obfuscated, with even more layers of foreign holding companies, multiple cross-ownership, and registration in havens of secrecy abroad, than there are now, to make the determination of the true value of many companies virtually impossible. Overnight, wealth tax avoidance strategies would become literally a multibillion dollar business, and many of the smartest accountants and tax lawyers in the country would devote themselves to devising such strategies.

And many rich people would of course simply move their residences to places such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands which would be extremely happy to open their arms to wealthy people fleeing from such a wealth tax.

And then of course there's Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies.......

Of course Joe Average with his $40,000 in a savings account and maybe $90,000 in his 401k, both of which are fully and automatically reported to the IRS, would not be able to use any of these strategies and would be taxed in full.