Tax News & Insights for January 30, 2023

Last week, eight states (California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Washington) introduced legislation enacting some variation of a wealth tax on the highest earners. Pro-tax activists like to point at European countries' experience with wealth taxes, often pointing to Sweeden and the Netherlands, but fail to notice those taxes were abandoned. Frankly, I was surprised we did not see a wealth tax in the presession filed bills. Then again, Oregon already taxes capital gains (wealth) as ordinary income and there is a bill to raise the top income tax rate to 13 percent.