From today's YouGov poll:

[DFW]

54. I'm not for any kind of wealth tax at all.

Maybe it's just from having been in Germany too long. The Nazis used it as a pretext to take everything from people they didn't like (i.e. Jews), so their post-war constitution forbade double taxation (I am a living example that they don't take that too seriously), which means if your money is legal, it was taxed, and the government can't tax you on it again. I live in a country where the mentality used to be, less than a century ago, "you have more than we do, we're taking it." Aptly described by one politician, who was anything BUT wealthy, as a "Neidsteuer," or jealousy tax. "I don't have it, so you can't, either."

Biden's tax on unrealized capital gains would have been unwieldy, too. Say someone's stock value goes from $100 million to $200 million, and you tax him on the extra $100 million. But then there's a market crash, and his unrealized $200 million goes down to $80 million. Then the government owes him tens of millions back. Hard to keep track of at best. Easier: make it illegal to loan yourself money on over 10% of unrealized gains. That way, if gazillionaires in such a situation want to free up a bunch of cash, they have to sell the stock and pay the capital gains taxes up front. The government will never be on the hook to pay anybody back. Graduated income tax, as I see it, is the way to go. Don't encourage capital flight. DO encourage domestic investment.

One million might have been considered extreme wealth before World War II. These days? It doesn't impress a lot of people in western countries any more. Sure, there are tens of millions of people for whom it represents a massive fortune. Hell, there are tens of millions of Americans for whom $10,000 represents a massive fortune. But if we want to give $10,000 to fifty million people, you have to raise an extra $500 billion. How many people have THAT? After Musk, the list thins out pretty quickly. If we are really going help people out, we have to go to the masses, not bankrupt ten billionaires, even if they deserve it.

We see lottery winners here with a sudden million or more. No one becomes destitute more quickly than they do. It's an easy sum to go through. It won't even buy you a McMansion any more (except, maybe, in Anguilla, Mississippi).