> Wealth is simply rows in a database (public securities) or paperwork at custodians (whether private equity, real estate, art, etc). The same systems that would defend your ability to own can tax what you own. You can't own without government enabling it.
I'd argue alot of wealth isn't tracked like this. How would you query for who owns all the Picassos in the world?
How would you track off shore money? What specific database are you suggesting we query?
You get to a point very quickly where you realize that wealth is even more of a black box than income and is even harder to track and record.
> How would you track off shore money? What specific database are you suggesting we query?
FinCEN (https://www.fincen.gov/) and other related entities. Plug into any institution with a license to hold value.
Propose the asset class and I will tell you how to find it and suss out who owns it in a way trivial for government to implement.
Here is a recent example of FinCEN closing a reporting gap: https://www.fincen.gov/boi ("Beginning on January 1, 2024, many companies in the United States will have to report information about their beneficial owners, i.e., the individuals who ultimately own or control the company. They will have to report the information to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). FinCEN is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.") As future gaps appear, close them.
(a component of work has been at asset custodians and I am familiar with reporting requirements to government regulators; if you can own it, it can be tracked)
> How would you find out how much real-estate I held outside of the united states?
Form 8938 for reporting, treaties with other countries mandating reporting. Agreed while difficult, it would not be impossible to avoid fiat rails when transacting in foreign real estate (ie evading transaction reporting thresholds). You would likely want to employ a data team for ingesting public real estate ownership records out of country if you were going to get serious about this gap, maybe form a clearinghouse for all developed nation tax authorities to consume the aggregate data lake created.
"FATCA is used by government personnel to detect indicia of U.S. persons and their assets and to enable cross-checking where assets have been self-reported by individuals to the IRS or to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). U.S. persons, regardless of residence location and regardless of dual citizenship, are required to self-report their non-U.S. assets to FinCEN on an annual basis. According to qualification criteria, individuals are also required to report this information on IRS information-reporting form 8938. FATCA will allow detection of persons who have not self-reported, enabling collection of large penalties. FATCA allows government personnel to locate U.S. persons not living in the United States, so as to assess U.S. tax or penalties."
> I really think you are vastly underestimating how hard this is.
The IRS has an annual budget of $12B-$14B and employs 79k people. Do they need more? We can do that if the ROI is favorable. They've only spent $2B of the $80B they've been allocated from the Inflation Reduction Act over the next decade.
I'd argue alot of wealth isn't tracked like this. How would you query for who owns all the Picassos in the world?
How would you track off shore money? What specific database are you suggesting we query?
You get to a point very quickly where you realize that wealth is even more of a black box than income and is even harder to track and record.