At best, the wealth tax would be constitutionally problematic.
The uniformity rule is usually easy to satisfy, but the wealth tax is unlikely to be considered an indirect tax.
The wealth tax is more likely to be considered a direct tax, and enacting a workable direct tax is hard to do-intentionally so.
To prevent abuse, the Constitution requires apportioning a direct tax among the states based on population: regardless of how the tax base is distributed across the country, taxpayers in each state in the aggregate must pay tax in proportion to their state's share of the national population.
There's no clear definition of "Direct tax" in the Constitution, but the Founders-at the Constitutional Convention, in ratification debates, in the Federalist Papers, and in the Supreme Court's 1796 decision in Hylton v. United States-assumed, almost without exception, that a land tax is a direct tax.
A land tax was a wealth tax: well-to-do Americans in the late eighteenth century had most of their wealth tied up in real estate.
As a result, a direct tax that is not a tax on incomes remains subject to apportionment.
https://www.city-journal.org/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax
The uniformity rule is usually easy to satisfy, but the wealth tax is unlikely to be considered an indirect tax.
The wealth tax is more likely to be considered a direct tax, and enacting a workable direct tax is hard to do-intentionally so.
To prevent abuse, the Constitution requires apportioning a direct tax among the states based on population: regardless of how the tax base is distributed across the country, taxpayers in each state in the aggregate must pay tax in proportion to their state's share of the national population.
There's no clear definition of "Direct tax" in the Constitution, but the Founders-at the Constitutional Convention, in ratification debates, in the Federalist Papers, and in the Supreme Court's 1796 decision in Hylton v. United States-assumed, almost without exception, that a land tax is a direct tax.
A land tax was a wealth tax: well-to-do Americans in the late eighteenth century had most of their wealth tied up in real estate.
As a result, a direct tax that is not a tax on incomes remains subject to apportionment.
https://www.city-journal.org/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax
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