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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (43325)	5/20/2010 1:43:20 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Its hard to say with confidence what its like for those at the extreme top. The handful (and it is just a handful) earning in the billions range per year. But generally the larger percentage of the marginal dollar you take the less incentive people have to work. For the super rich its not so much work as to take risks. If most of the windfall from investments will be taxed away, then they will find ways to legally avoid taxes. If they couldn't (and they can), some of them would then illegally evade taxes. If they couldn't or didn't want to, than they would tend more towards safer investments rather than starting new businesses or expanding old ones. Tax the superrich that much and they will find ways to shift money overseas (or not bring it here to begin with, or more accurately the rich who want to be super rich will be less likely to bring their money here). Or they will park it in tax free bonds. Ignoring this large practical harm, its just wrong to take so much of people's wealth. Also since the number of people at that level of income is sol low it will do just about nothing to balance the budget even if the taxes are not avoided or evaded (which is unlikely). A static analysis, not counting changes in behavior, would show little effect on the deficit. Count people's likely responses and you probably increase the deficit by reducing revenue.