Read through this thread yesterday and you'll learn that taxes on luxury goods have, apparently, been tried before, and they didn't work very well. At all. They mainly just lowered consumption, put yacht builders out of work, and pissed people off. To some extent, these effects don't bother me as I want to depress consumption of luxury items, but insofar as taxing the rich goes, revenues, and not quirky theories about positional competition, should probably be the aim. So if you want to tax the rich, it's probably best to go back to that old standby: Take a bigger chunk of their incomes. Oh, and their estates. Oh, and also their capital gains. Definitely of their capital gains.
