No, this is not as stupid as you think. A billionaire never needs to sell his stock. Need money to spend of lavish lifestyle? Just borrow it. Interest rate is really low and you can use stocks as collateral. This is how billionaires avoid paying any taxes while living a life of affluence.

Yes, I know there are problems with taxing wealth but it is very hard to get the rich to pay much taxes at all without taxing wealth. Nobody has come up with a good solution to this problem.

It is not right that the rich get to grow enormous fortunes while paying next to no taxes, while everybody else pays.

An alternative could be to tax trading. Regardless before shooting down wealth tax, I think people should at least try to offer an alternative.