It's not a straw man, I believe a better idiom would be 'the tail wagging the dog', i.e. you're using an extreme edge case to argue against the big picture proposal. A real tax would include the small picture details: payment plans, equity swaps, valuation tribunals, etc to cover the oddball cases. But none of that would matter, you would sell it and net the $500M.
Even with payment plants ,equity swaps, valuation tribunals, it would still be the case that someone with more money than me can force me to sell anything I own to them, by placing a value higher than I can pay on it?
I find it odd that you think that amidst this world of legal tomfoolery and loopholes - a wealth tax could not be conceived that doesn’t force artificial valuations and liquidations.