How would non-liquid assets like art be taxed?
Same way houses or cars are taxed. I'm not sure an unrealized gains or wealth tax are the greatest idea, and it comes with problems, but all taxes do. In principle, I think Georgism might be a better way of doing things. It doesn't disincentivize investment or labor (unlike income or capital gains/dividend taxes), and it discourages real estate bubbles and speculating on land. SF and other real estate bubbles should do experiments with this instead of whatever wacky UBI nonsense they're up to.
all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations – should belong equally to all members of society
I could get behind that if you had a naturally growing society without legal or illegal immigration. Why should Sheep Fucker Saiid be able to walk across the border and reap the benefits that we have all shared the burden of creating?
yeah, that's really a thorn in the side of a lot of these ideas. People like to work with those who share their same values, culture, etc. But furthermore, even if that wasn't a problem, no country on earth could simultaneously provide a high-quality of life to all resdents and allow unrestricted immigration. The default state of the world is poor, and there are just too many poor people out there, so it would overwhelm any country that tried this. And worse still, there will just be more poor people created, and this whole system incentivizes it.
That part of Georgism is pretty naive, but the arguments around property tax seem sound to me. Seems like the "least bad" tax option.
This article makes a few good points I never thought about with taxing unrealized capital gains. How would non-liquid assets like art be taxed? Also just because something increases in value doesn't mean the owner has cash to pay the tax. Even billionaires will have 95% or more of their value invested, so they would be forced to sell assets to pay tax on assets they haven't sold.
Remember too, federal income tax was originally only for the rich. Now we all pay it. Just wait until you have to pay unrealized gains on your crypto