Forget Income Tax, Cap gains, FICA etc.

@no1marauder said
You clearly don't understand what "wealth" means. This might help: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wealth.asp#:~:text=Wealth%20is%20the%20total%20value,either%20absolute%20or%20relative%20terms.

The concept is reliant on the market price of an asset.

Taxing possession of a gold bar (regardless what its current market value would be if it were sold) is equivalent to taxing someone simply for having a car, because its part of his net worth, after he's already paid sales tax on the purchase of the car and income tax on the wages which paid for the car. That's triple taxation.

@moonbus said
Suppose you have a gold bar in a safe deposit box. That generates no dividends. The fact that the price of gold goes up and down is irrelevant -- it generates no wealth in the way working for a wage does, or renting out a house does. Now, if net worth is taxed, lets say at 7% p.a., then what this means in effect is that the govt may remove 7% of that bar of gold each year, un ...[text shortened]... house or a farm or an automobile. The fact that these things vary in price over time is irrelevant.

Gummint routinely "removes" 1% of my house per year. 😆

And yet a decade later, my house is still the same size!

@moonbus said
Taxing possession of a gold bar (regardless what its current market value would be if it were sold) is equivalent to taxing someone simply for having a car, because its part of his net worth, after he's already paid sales tax on the purchase of the car and income tax on the wages which paid for the car. That's triple taxation.

Every State in the country has ad valorem taxes, mostly on real estate but many on certain types of tangible personal property.

There's very little "dispossession" going on.

@spruce112358 said
Gummint routinely "removes" 1% of my house per year. 😆

And yet a decade later, my house is still the same size!

Other people have been turned out of house and home and the property offered for forced auction because they couldn't pay the tax on it. That's dispossession.

@no1marauder said
Every State in the country has ad valorem taxes, mostly on real estate but many on certain types of tangible personal property.

There's very little "dispossession" going on.

I shall invest my assets in Duesenbergs and Bugattis instead of gold; bulkier to store, but, boy oh boy, will I make a splash arriving in St. Moritz in one !

@moonbus said
You paid in ways you didn't notice.

The value of my possession (i.e. house) determined the yearly amount I contribute to partly fund the government that protects all our rights equally. 😆

So just include my house with all my other possessions (i.e. net worth), base my yearly contribution on that, entirely fund gummint, and btw forget about income tax. 😆

@moonbus said
Other people have been turned out of house and home and the property offered for forced auction because they couldn't pay the tax on it. That's dispossession.

I've said before, I would not un-house people due to not paying tax. 😆

You cannot have "the right to live" but not "no right to live anywhere," that doesn't make sense.

Unpaid taxes would create a government lien that prevents transfer of the title of the property. Then negotiations would start. 😆

@moonbus said
I shall invest my assets in Duesenbergs and Bugattis instead of gold; bulkier to store, but, boy oh boy, will I make a splash arriving in St. Moritz in one !

If you want to blow your fortune rather than pay tax on it, go for it. You do you. 😆

@sh76 said
Property taxes are different because you're paying for the services that you get as a property owner. Schools, firefighting, police, snow plowing, etc.

Somebody has to pay for these things, and having the people who own the real estate in the community pay for them makes sense. Property taxes allocating these costs based on the value of the property you own in the neighborhood (which proportionately makes these services more valuable for you) also makes sense.

Property taxes I can deal with. It's homeowner's insurance that is killing me. It goes up every year, even though I file no claims and they do nothing for me. Because my insurance is paid through escrow, my mortgage payment goes up every year, and when it doesn't, I'm tapped the next year to pay for the escrow shortage. It's ridiculous.

The only way out is to change insurance companies every few years, but that is no guarantee I won't get screwed by the next company.