This is not correct.
The things you’re mentioning like rich folks “hiding their shit” or whatever and beefing up the IRS is about hiding and discovering INCOME. No disagreement there.
Valuing WEALTH is entirely different. HNW folks won’t just have like piles of cash somewhere or even piles of stocks which are easy to value. I feel like folks are assuming it’ll just be as easy as ferreting out all these “hidden accounts” of cash to tax it. They will have ownership interests in private businesses or companies. To tax wealth you need to value these. To do this you need, among other things:
1. Timely audited financial statements whose numbers you can trust (which take lots of time and money to prepare). This would require an overnight transformation and beefing up of the public accounting industry.
2. Competently prepared valuations based on those financial statements and tons of unauditable assumptions such as growth projections, real estate valuations, etc. This will require an even larger overhaul of the valuation industry as well as the expertise needed at the IRS to challenge these valuations.
Not to mention all of the other types of assets that folks own. And the debt they hold. All of which need to be compiled into a personal financial statement...prepared by who? Gotta be able to trust the numbers so it can’t be self prepared. So you have another accountant who is like a general contractor to farm out all these valuations and compile a personal financial statement...by when? And as of what date, 12/31? By the time all this work gets done ten months from then you have tons of subsequent events that mhb mocked that are better information on those valuations you prepared that are now obsolete.
The best information on valuing any asset is when it’s transacted. Bought or sold. So jack up the taxes on the income or gain realized on those sales. That erases the need for pretty much all of that complication. And which is coincidentally the system we have now.
If it’s the system you want, you need to design something workable and acknowledge the challenges. You can’t just count your money and lash out when folks question the details and accuse them of being republicans or whatever.