How do you define "wealth". Wealth is usually the result of savings and/or investments that one has made over his/her lifetime. To tax one on this is to penalize one for being thrifty and forgoing many luxuries while the one who spends on travel, vacations, a huge home, pays nothing. We had a personal property tax in PA that taxed some stock that I owned for a company that was in Chapter 11 banckruptcy and paid no dividends -- I still had to pay personal property tax on it, evne though I had no income from it and it was worth less than I paid for it. Is that the kind of wealth you think should be taxed? Do you tax the retirement savings on someone who is scrimping on $20,000 per year, raising a family, and just managing to save something for the future. That would be totally regressive.
