Quote Originally Posted by Connington View Post
Once successful, they break open chests full of archaeological treasures like piggy banks, and refuse to spend their ill-gotten gains on housing, food, or anything but weapons, armor, and magical items. They treat being reminded to eat and bathe as nuisance bookkeeping, have a statistically unlikely probability of being orphans, and regard entire species that consider them to be mortal foes as "cannon fodder".
Classier and richer adventurers carry self-contained and self-replenishing systems for maintaining a comfortable standard of living without ever having to spend a penny over their initial investment. Who needs to buy food or dring when you have some Everlasting Rations and an Everfull mug? Who needs housing when you can carry an instant fortress in your back pocket?

Quote Originally Posted by Madara View Post
It depends of if they have a place of residence. Most adventurers probably don't, and wander from country to country. In addition, let me ask you, "Do you have to pay taxes if you find a 20$ bill on the ground?"
Depending on the laws of the land large sums can still be taxed even if you happen to just find them.

Anyway all this is just another illustration of how D&D economics are best considered using Bellisario's Maxim, ie not at all. Of course it works a LOT better if you don't confuse "wealth" with "gold". As has already been correctly mentioned in this thread wealth is tied to character power. Taking a large portion of WBL away significantly affects the game.

But "wealth" is not necessarily "gold". WBL is just a rough guide to how well equipped a character should be at certain levels. However it shouldn't be interpreted as a character having X amount of coinage at level Y to spend at Ye Olde Magick Mart. D&D economics works a lot better if you don't just shower the players in coins and instead directly give them the equivalent value in magic items.

This way a high level player can still have an appropriate wealth for their level and not be swimming in enough riches to buy out the kingdom. Any significantly valuable magic item would be treated as priceless, because no one would be able to afford to pay it's value in gold. This prevents players from being able to liquidate (as if they would) their assets into gold.