I answered the way I did cause you wrote "if we wanted to tax this wealth".
Which is the point, really, cause nobody cares about the small person who got a 1000% return on 50$ of Bitcoin, we care about massive assets owned by a tiny minority who is able to dodge capital gains tax even if their asset growth is only 4% per year.
Let's say you have $1,000,000, and you by a share of Bershire or whatever that increases to $3,000,000.
A capital gains tax taxes the $2,000,000 unrealized -- but eventually effective -- gain.
A wealth tax taxes the $3,000,000 estimated net worth.
There is a real distinction. A real reason to incentivize productive capital, and that is you get to keep what you've earned. The point I'm trying to make is only that people should pay taxes, and an unrealized capital gain from literally 40 years ago isn't some unknowable investment outcome... it's a capital gain.
Which is the point, really, cause nobody cares about the small person who got a 1000% return on 50$ of Bitcoin, we care about massive assets owned by a tiny minority who is able to dodge capital gains tax even if their asset growth is only 4% per year.