Re: Wealth Tax vs. Capital Gains Tax Reduction

[Jason Vagner <jlv@signet.sig.bsh.com>]

On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> 
> I've been thinking a lot about the prospects of a "wealth tax," or "asset
> tax," in the U.S. With the stock market averages at record levels (and,
> hey, Intel has gone up $6 just so far today, to an unheard of $94.5 level),
> and with increasing fractions of people's overall net worth tied up in
> equities, bonds, houses, property, etc., it may be that the looters will
> take a more serious look at taxing people's overall wealth, e.g., the 5% of
> net worth per year that some countries have.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but could this lead to
"engineering" the market at particularly times of the year to decrease the
"official" value of an entity's value and complicating the pricing of
equities? Would this become a viable means for those with less wealth to
capitalize on the momentary "dip" in prices?

jlv