A wealth tax is a tax on high value assets, high incomes, or luxury goods. The premise of the tax is that this can reduce the gap between the rich and the poor either by making the rich less rich, or by doing that and then redistributing money to the poor, thus narrowing the gap between the rich and poor. The rich are poor and the few are many, however. An attempt to greatly reduce the wealth or incomes of the rich may simply encourage the rich to leave a country or to avoid the taxes with the help of accountants or lawyers. This would complicate efforts to collect the tax, and may actually mean that the tax was inefficient, because it collected less than it cost to operate. If a government were to take tax from a small number of individuals and then give a small portion to a large number of poorer people, the effect might be temporary and might not really affect incomes overall, as it could be spent on debt, inferior goods, or imported cheap goods. In addition, taxes ...