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[DFW]

9. I'd rather not.

I see it like Germany’s Heiner Geissler: as a “Neidsteuer,” or “jealousy tax.” It can only be imposed on that which is visible, ergo already taxed once. The reason it is unconstitutional in Germany is because they remember how it was applied during the Nazi era on Jews. “What? You still have something left? OK, we’ll fix that!” And who decided what was to be done with the extra wealth confiscated? Why, the ones doing the confiscation, of course! How convienient.

If a country’s government, with the consent of the governed, as the phrase goes, wants to raise the marginal tax rate on people earning a lot, or on unearned income, let them do it. But this “we’re coming to get you again, and we alone decide what we’re gonna do with what we take from you” stinks of what happened under the German National Socialists in the 1930s and 1940s. It didn’t end with the National Socialists (“Nazis” for short). Look at socialist Romania. Ceaușescu confiscated most of the country’s citizens’ wealth, too. Did he spend it on the people? No. They remained in abject poverty, and he kept it all for himself. I was called in by the post-1989 Romanian government a little over ten years ago to help evaluate some of Ceaușescu’s stash, and it was so vast that it would have taken over a month, which I didn’t have. It’s still there. They’re such hopeless bureaucrats that they still haven’t yet figured out how to dispose of it in a fair and efficient manner.