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Comment by maneesh | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. If you were a new startup founder in this environment, wouldn't you likely do ANYTHING to not have a valuation >$49MM? Probably deciding not to raise more funding, not to scale, not to grow and help others.

I think that the side effects of a wealth tax might just end VC investing in high valuation companies altogether. I don't know if many people on HN see that as a positive.

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I thought Warren's tax plan was the wealth over $50 million. Meaning that if you were worth $51 million, only one million would be taxed at 2%, meaning $20,000 would be payed.

The trouble with picking an arbitrary number like 50 million is the slippery slope it creates. Today we start with 2% over $50m. Tomorrow we will see a report that lowering it to $40m will help fund health care/fund climate change/(plug any socially acceptable agenda here) and the change will be voted in. A few decades after we'll wake up in an economy that will tax you heavily unless you're sharing your condo with your parents and a grandma [0] because someone has decided that it's an acceptable level of wealth.

[0] Anecdotal, but that was the way to get an apartment for my parents' generation back in Soviet Union and I really don't want to see it here again.

Yes, I believe that's correct.

Well then I doubt it would be this apocalyptic thing of people trying to be worth $49,999,999.99, since being worth $50,000,001.00 would only give them an increased tax of $0.02.

I think most people would still be willing to keep working on stuff, and I don't see why VCs would stop investing in high-value companies altogether.

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