This is a commonly asked for policy by the left wing supporters and often times it is a promise made by politicians who want to lock a big chunk of the voter percentage. It is not an ill-motivated policy but it is mainly driven by wishful thinking. It is no secret that the right wing wants lower taxes, and the left wing wants higher taxes, at least in modern, first world politics. They both have solid arguments and depending on your worldview and mindset, you might agree with one or the other, I don't really care about your political inclination and this post is not supposed to talk about politics, just use the one argument in the title to expand on taxation.
Oh right, and the libertarian faction thinks that Taxation in any form is theft, no matter if its little or huge, that's more like me, but this post is not about me.
The 1% should be taxed more
I mean, they earn more money, they should contribute more towards the development of social programs, school funding, road repairs etc. If one person earns 2,000 USD a month, 22% is a lot and it may impede him from having a comfortable life, but to someone who earns 100k USD a month, 50% means he won't be able to go on holiday to the Alps this summer.
That's the idea, right? The higher the taxes on a higher income bracket, the least issues will be presented to the person being taxed. It should work like this, right? The 1% should get a stupidly high taxation because, 60% of 10 million dollars is still more than what anybody could wish for, and more money than you could spend in a lifetime, so what's the big fuzz about this idea?
Except taxing the 1% that's so stupid, at least according to some people who understand taxation better than I do, because naturally the rich would lobby for write-offs and loopholes, in the end, the rich already control lobbyists and policy makers, they would find a way to transfer that tax burden to the average Joe.
When the US tax base was upward 90% which only really applied to a very small bunch of people, they simply lobbied for a crapton of loopholes they could play with and use to their advantage, and they effectively brought down their taxes to a lower rate than they where before the initial tax increase.
I mean, think about it, in theory taxing harder the 1% is great but in practice it has proven to be disastrous, if you don't believe me, ask left wing (originally centrist, but in practice a left wing politician) French President Emmanuel Macron how France did when he tried to implement a wealth tax. I'll tell you if you don't want to open the source - why would you if I can give it to you half-digested?: It fucked their revenue so much that the French government had to backdown and scrap the law altogether, pretending it never existed and asking for the elite's forgiveness by making them pay even less taxes than before the wealth tax law was implemented. Imagine my shock.
This happens because unlike you an me, the really wealthy aren't shackled to a single country. If a country dares to try and tax the rich and famous too harshly, they'll just move their companies, money, and transactions overseas, where the grass is greener.
In 1990, twelve countries in Europe had a wealth tax. Today, there are only three: Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. According to reports by the OECD and others, there were some clear themes with the policy: it was expensive to administer, it was hard on people with lots of assets but little cash, it distorted saving and investment decisions, it pushed the rich and their money out of the taxing countries—and, perhaps worst of all, it didn't raise much revenue. Source
Even when the wealthy pay less of a percentage in taxes, they still pay for a majority of the tax revenue.
This is exactly why a lot of nations that understand taxation in a modern, globo-homo-like, globalized economy works, and they actually make the tax bracket for the top 1% more favorable, just to attract this so called privileged 1% into their nation. A small chunk of a gazillion dollars sounds better than a big chunk of nothing, does it?
I mean let's try to understand why the hell should Luxemburg (one of the so called tax haven or fiscal paradise country) increase their wealth taxes, when the morons in France just raised their taxes, which in turn pushed that 1% directly into Luxembourg? They gain an increase in revenue without having to even touch their tax brackets, while France deals with deficits in revenue, which is exactly what occurred in 2010's when an increase in wealth tax was implemented.
About Income tax
The tax that we pay on general goods and services is already included in the price and we can't avoid it, the more things one person buys the more taxes that person will pay. These taxes are unavoidable; if a rich person buys more expensive stuff, they will pay more taxes, there's no need to add a wealth tax when your economy already runs by taxing everything everyone buys. An income tax is retarded when we are already taxed at every store we go to.
There is no need - and there has never been, but we accept everything they do to us - for an income tax where people should pay taxes just for receiving their salary or for making money from a stock or crypto investment. Everyone pays taxes to the government when they buy stuff, and if they order something from overseas, they pay the taxes through the tariff/delivery service. Also, don't forget that our dear visa and mastercard already have a 2% tx fee, this means the seller receives 2% less than what you paid for a product or service so we already know they can allocate taxes depending on the country you live on and the country you buy things from.
But wait, why does a country really need taxes if they already have free access to print money willy nilly and and they can tax us through inflation and the best of all, they screw us all evenly, rich and poor, young and old, woman or dog.
No shit that El Salvador prefers Bitcoin than USD as a national currency. No shit that the wealthy bunch of the USA is just leaving to never return. Feel good policies that don't work in reality just push the smart people away - I'm not calling you dumb if you live in the US, as I stated, this only applies to the ultra rich and if you are ultra rich and reading my shit well, I don't think you'll stay rich for a long time, man.
A case for the rich?
The rich and famous already get a lot of tax breaks through loopholes and greay areas, how can you and I get a freaking break from this? It's every citizens right to exploit the system for as much as they exploit you.
The rich do pay taxes, and they pay a large chunk of the total revenue gathered in any country. But this doesn't mean that the rich will accept to pay the same percentage you pay. For them to be forced to pay the same 20% as you is an insult, why should they? It'll be more cost effective to use 10% of their income to lobby to stick to the loophole induced 5-6% of their millions.
At the end of the day, 6% of $1MM USD will always bring more revenue than 20% of $40K, even though technically everyone should be paying 20%.
I mean, if you are a billionaire/millionarie and you are not actively funding a lobby group that works in your favor, you are just retarded.
Hmm this billionaire is contributing a large chunk of our tax revenue through property taxes, payroll taxes, business licenses, fees for having such number of employees and from buying large chunk of goods. I think I'll raise his taxes to 90% of his income so he can finally be motivated to leave this country, leaving us with huge budget deficits that will have to be rectified through cuts of public programs.
See how that sounds? In theory it's nice, in practice not so much.
So no, according to my books, the 1% should not have higher taxes, but I'm open to discussion, perhaps you open my eyes and show me where I'm wrong, after all I am not infalible.