Harris’ tax plan isn’t feasible

Vice President Kamala Harris is proposing to tax the unrealized gain on billionaires’ property, other than real estate, which is already taxed.

The 16th Amendment permits taxing “income.” It doesn’t authorize taxing the increased value of property not sold that billionaires might own, such as stocks, art, stamp collections, vintage cars, race horses, etc. So a constitutional amendment would be required.

Even if this was legal, administering such a tax would be almost impossible. Just making a list of what is owned by the uber wealthy would be difficult. Then an annual appraisal of each item would be required to determine to what extent the value may have gone up or down. The IRS doesn’t have that capability.

The other major complication is that values do not always increase. Recall the stock market dove 25% during the Great Recession. It took five years to recover. When the value goes down, a tax refund would be due for the unrealized loss each year.