Being rich has always been good, but there has never been a better time to have money to spend than now.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, America’s billionaires have become 62 percent richer during the Covid crisis. The nonprofit Oxfam reported that the global 1 percent consumed two-thirds of the $42 trillion in new wealth created in the years following the pandemic.

Check out: These are America’s wealthiest suburbs

Read more: 7 reasons why you should consider a financial advisor to boost your savings

Like her current boss, President Joe Biden – the man she is seeking to become the first woman to fill – Vice President Kamala Harris believes these kinds of statistics reveal a toxic level of wealth inequality and economic inequality. If she wins in November and has the support of a friendly Congress, the super-rich and even the ordinary wealthy can expect Harris to take direct aim at their vast fortunes.

Earning passive income doesn’t have to be difficult. You can start this week.

Meet the expert

Dennis Shirshikov is a professor of finance, accounting, and economics at the City University of New York. Not only does he have an excellent 4.9 out of 5 rating on RateMyProfessor, but he also has first-hand experience building and preserving wealth despite party, government, and policy changes. A longtime real estate investor, he is the head of growth at vacation property investment platform GoSummer. He writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal, Time, and Forbes, and covers the intersection of government policy and wealth building in the academic courses he teaches.

In his estimation, a Harris victory would likely have the greatest impact on the rich through adjustments to the IRS’s tax laws.

“A Kamala Harris presidency could bring significant changes to the tax landscape for the wealthy,” he said.

Read more: Trump wants to abolish income tax: This is what it would mean for the economy and your wallet

Harris supports a targeted “wealth tax” for the richest of the rich

Assuming a friendly Congress, Harris has signaled that as president she would adopt President Biden’s longstanding position that the wealthiest Americans do not pay their fair share of taxes.

“A Kamala Harris presidency will likely pursue tax policies aimed at increasing the tax burden on the rich,” Shirshikov said. “Harris has previously advocated measures to increase the tax burden on top earners, such as raising the top tax rate and introducing a wealth tax.”

The wealth tax mentioned by Shirshikov comes from Biden and Harris’ official 2025 budget proposal, which states: “Currently, the tax code provides special treatment for the types of income that wealthy people enjoy. While the wages and salaries that ordinary Americans earn are taxed as ordinary income, billionaires make their money in ways that are taxed at lower rates and sometimes not taxed at all. This special treatment, combined with sophisticated tax planning and huge loopholes, allows many of the wealthiest Americans to pay lower tax rates on all their income than many middle-class households. To finally address this blatant injustice, the budget proposes a minimum tax of 25% on the richest 0.01%, those with assets of more than $100 million.”

The story continues

Capital gains – including unrealized gains – could be taxed as regular income

Shirshikov referred to the Vice President’s commitment to “close loopholes that disproportionately benefit top earners,” echoing language in the White House budget proposal.

Because the wealthy typically rely more on their capital gains than their salaries, the budget proposal would tax capital gains for those earning $1 million or more at the same rate as regular income. It would also close the carried interest loophole that, according to the White House budget proposal, “allows some wealthy mutual fund managers to pay lower taxes than their secretaries.” It would also close the “like-for-like exchange loophole that allows real estate investors to defer taxes indefinitely.”

The most striking proposal, however, is what IFC Media, the leading publisher for the global wealth management industry, calls a “radical departure from normal taxation”: taxing the unrealized gains of the super-rich.

There’s an old saying among investors that you don’t lose anything until you sell. Conversely, unharvested returns are still unrealized gains and therefore not subject to taxation – at least not yet.

Her proposal to impose a 25 percent tax on unrealized gains for cent-millionaires with assets in the nine-figure range or more would be a turning point for U.S. tax policy.

Even rich people have to expect a higher income tax rate

Harris’s push for a wealth tax on the super-rich is relatively easy to sell in a country where millions of people live paycheck to paycheck.

“This approach is consistent with their overarching goal of addressing income inequality and ensuring that the wealthiest Americans contribute a fairer share of government revenue,” Shirshikov said.

But he also expects an increase in the top marginal tax rate. That would cast a much wider net, trapping not just a handful of super-rich centimonaires and billionaires, but also a large number of relatively ordinary top earners, many of whom may not even consider themselves rich.

Biden and Harris’s 2025 budget proposal repeals a provision in Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that cut the tax rate for top earners to 37 percent. “The top tax rate of 39.6 percent for singles earning over $400,000 a year and married couples earning over $450,000 a year will be restored,” the administration’s official budget proposal states.

Compared to billionaires, a person earning $400,000 may seem like a small fish. But according to the Tax Foundation, that income puts you in the top 2%—and the Biden-Harris administration believes the 98th percentile is an appropriate lower limit for targeting taxes on the rich. So America’s aristocracy would be wise to sit down with their financial advisors now to prepare.

Shirshikov said: “These measures are aimed at reducing income inequality and generating revenue for social programs, which will potentially impact the investment strategies and financial planning of the wealthy.”

Editor’s note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to objectively cover all aspects of the economy and present balanced reporting on politically focused financial topics. For more reporting on this topic, see How a Trump Presidency Could Impact Tax Policy for the Rich.

More from GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: I’m an economist: This is what a Harris win would mean for the tax burden on the rich.