Recently, I've read a few comments, primarily from very wealthy people, about the proposed wealth tax . I haven't decided whether this is a good idea or not, and so I did some shallow investigation beyond newspaper headlines. Most of us already have a good idea about what tax means, but wealth is not immediately obvious. I've checked several sources on what wealth usually means. The most common interpretation of wealth I've encountered is that it's equivalent to Net Worth . Basically, N et Worth = assets - liabilities, where assets include the value of all your cash and things you own, and liabilities consist of your obligations and the money you owe. Hence, if you bought a house for $250,000 and the house is valued at $250,000, then you have a $250,000 asset . If you took out a $200,000 mortgage to finance your purchase of the house, then you also acquired a $200,000 liability . If you also have $5000 in your bank account, then that is an asset. If yo