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Via Nick Beaudrot comes a very good idea from professional rich guy Mark Cuban: A bling tax. It would essentially act as a consumption tax effecting luxury goods above a certain value. As Cuban says:
If Warren [Buffett] wants to buy or build a yacht for a hundred million dollars. Nail him with a 10pct federal tax surcharge. If I want to buy a Gulfstream Jet for 40mm dollars. Nail me with a 10pct federal surcharge above and beyond current taxes. There are plenty of items, from jewelry to 100k plus cars to 10mm dollars or more first, 2nd and 3rd homes. If you can afford to buy these kind of goodies, and choose to, cough it up.Will i avoid the Gulfstream or Warren the Yacht because of the surcharge ? Will I drive a used car instead of my new expensive Lexus Hybrid. Nope. You are rich when you know that money is no good unless you can enjoy it. No one on the Forbes 400 or near by is going to let a 10 percent more increase in the cost of a luxury item get in the way of enjoying the lives they have always dreamed of.Not a bad idea. Indeed, I'd actually go further than Cuban and jack that tax up until it actually did discourage the acquisition of luxury goods, as I'm increasingly convinced that the positional competition and expenditure cascades are bad for everybody. But since no one will listen to me on that point, simply taxing obscene wealth on the margins seems like a pretty good idea. Are we really concerned abut rich people buying less jewelry?
