Engineered Tax Services founder argues in Fox News that United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby’s proposed wealth tax and near-100% inheritance tax would confiscate productive assets and undermine the incentive to build
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Julio Gonzalez, Founder and CEO of Engineered Tax Services, has published a response in Fox News to United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby’s call for a national wealth tax and an inheritance tax approaching 100% on amounts above an unspecified threshold.
In the October 25 opinion piece, Gonzalez writes that such policies would confiscate productive assets, weaken the incentive to build businesses, and threaten the family legacies that drive long-term economic growth. “Americans deserve to keep their legacy,” he states. The ability to build something and pass it to family is not a social problem. It is one of the strongest reasons entrepreneurs take risks and parents make sacrifices.
Why the Proposal Fails
Kirby has advocated for an annual tax on estimated asset values — even when those assets produce no cash income — and a near-total estate tax above a threshold he has not defined. Gonzalez contends that a wealth tax ignores the form business wealth actually takes. Much of it is held in operating companies, buildings, equipment, and ownership interests. These are productive, often illiquid assets, not cash.
Forcing owners to borrow, sell, or withdraw capital to pay a tax on paper value would divert money from hiring, expansion, and equipment. The cost does not stop with the owner. Workers and communities feel it when capital that would have been reinvested is redirected to a tax on unrealized value. Accumulated wealth, Gonzalez notes, frequently reflects income that has already been taxed or appreciation that has not yet been realized.
An inheritance tax approaching 100% above a threshold treats the desire to leave something for the next generation as a flaw rather than a driver of long-term investment. Entrepreneurs take risks knowing success can benefit their families for years. Parents make decisions with their children’s security in mind. A near-confiscatory estate tax gives government an arbitrary claim on property and erodes that incentive. Gonzalez notes that Kirby has not specified the threshold, but the principle remains the same even at high levels.
The Alternative
Gonzalez does not treat inequality as imaginary. He treats the proposed remedy as the wrong one. The practical response, he argues, is broader ownership, more competition, fewer barriers to business formation, and wider access to the expertise and incentives that help smaller operators keep more of what they build. Before Washington claims a larger share of private wealth, he writes, it should demonstrate discipline with the resources it already collects.
“Policy should focus on building more owners and opening doors,” Gonzalez argues, “not government seizure.”
That has been the public case of Engineered Tax Services since he founded it in 2001. Gonzalez created the firm so accounting firms could put engineers, tax attorneys, and scientists behind client work that had long been reserved for Fortune 500 companies. Over 25 years the firm has grown to 26 offices and produced more than $2 billion in documented client tax savings. The Fox News piece extends that argument from credits and incentives into the question of whether government should be allowed to treat successful family ownership as a problem to be taxed away.
The full piece is available at foxnews.com.
About Julio Gonzalez
Julio Gonzalez is Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Engineered Tax Services, a national specialty tax, incentives, and grant-advisory firm headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is the author of Why Billionaires Love the Tax Code and The Grant Equality Blueprint.
Issued by Thrive & Press.
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