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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (623662)	8/9/2011 4:00:11 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576929

I'm not saying "all the rich guys" will do anything. I'm talking about marginal changes. Many people will only make small changes, some won't change at all. But its ridiculous to think that you can just grab more and more money from people without it having an impact. The impact is normally faster and harder in terms of investments than labor. Investment capital is more mobile, most people won't change countries for moderate differences in tax rates, but capital can move around the world quickly. Even if it couldn't a tax increase can render the after-tax risk and inflation adjusted return to low to justify an investment easier than it can cause people to stop working. But labor is affected as well esp. as the total marginal rate (from all taxes on all levels) climbs to take more than half of a workers income. And its not just a matter of reducing or driving off investment, and reducing hours worked by those with highly demanded skills, its also an issue that higher taxes encourage more tax avoidance (legally reducing your tax burden), evasion (illegally doing so), and deference (pushing tax liability in to future years). Increase capital gains taxes, and people hold off on realizing the gains, and going forward you get less investment. Increase taxes on labor, and you get more off the books work, as well as less people working 2nd jobs, or low paying jobs when they are not the households primary income generator. Raise corporate tax rates and you get more incentive for corporate activities to happen overseas, try to grab that money and you either fail, or give an advantage to non American companies over American companies, or both. Institute transaction taxes on securities as some people are calling for, and you chase volume to places that do not have such taxes. People don't just sit and take it as you raise taxes higher and higher, they look for ways to not pay the taxes or not pay as much.