But how would you measure it? The most objective way of measuring value when you are exchanging it to something else i.e. transaction, if you have real estate it can appreciate in value but if you sell it, or rent it, then you pay tax based on that transaction.
It would be great if consumption and not income could be taxed though (not easy).
> They estimate that and wealthy know all about it. There is no equation for calculating value of a piece of art.
They calculated "Wealth" for this article.
There are many many valuation methods for assets, including art, and each has its trade offs (yes they can be gamed). Unless you want to take this to its philosophical conclusion of no observation being able to be an objective truth.
My point is that for taxation or legislation you need exact numbers and the same number should be the result for two different people in the same situation. I agree that even huge margin errors could be perfectly fine (because some value + margin error still give you lower bound) but I think we're not even close to that.
Plus as much as I want it I just don't see how would you ever implement anything practical. Pure sophistication and obfuscation helps hide the wealth. Somebody rick can easily spend 10% of their wealth doing that (we're talking millions here) and tracing back these paths can turn out to be more expensive. Gov is at huge disadvantage here despite laws already helping it in a very questionable ways - like your need to prove where did you get some money from instead of gov proving that you got it illegally.
It would be great if consumption and not income could be taxed though (not easy).