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A Radical? Me?
While much of this article will send the left side of the peanut gallery shrieking to the tops of their bell towers for a furious bit of twirling, I'm linking it here for this:
[That increasing tax rates on the wealthy results in lower tax revenue from the same] shouldn't be surprising. The highest tax bracket income earners, when compared with those people in lower tax brackets, are far more capable of changing their taxable income by hiring lawyers, accountants, deferred income specialists and the like. They can change the location, timing, composition and volume of income to avoid taxation.
Not that it matters. Taxing the rich to increase revenue is not the point, and never has been. Justice always trumps prosperity, and if people refuse to understand this point then the government must be used to make them understand it.
You know, if there was one thing the Democrats used to understand, it's the fact that you don't tax the rich to raise revenue, you tax the rich to change what they invest in. It looks like a "punitive tax" to the Joe Plumbers of the world, but if it was a punitive tax, we would have had the results we're getting now, instead of the deficit reduction of the Clinton Administration.
That got thrown out the window when we elected a popular socialist, though. Now we're trying to soak the rich instead of steer them, and the rich are heading for places where their wealth-generating skills are appreciated instead of condemned. But then, given that Obama is such an "International President," maybe that's exactly what he wants... to enrich other coutries at the expense of the US.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian on August 9, 2010 10:33 AMI'd say it was the Law of Unintended Consequences, but I don't think that's correct, either. My best guess is that the politicians are smart enough to realize that those with means will absolutely move their money elsewhere (I would if I had enough time and knowledge to figure it all out). This will allow them to further excoriate the rich and enact even more draconian and convoluted tax laws.
Or, a much simpler answer is that they want to sound tough on the rich without actually hurting their larger supports so they allow all sorts of loopholes like this.
Either way drives populist sentiment so they can portray themselves as "helping the little guy".
Posted by: Ron ap Rhys on August 10, 2010 12:16 PM