You can only tax people so much before it's too much.
effective tax rates
0% ... not realistic outside very unique circumstances.
25% ... feels fair to me.
33% ... still fair but yeah 1 out of every 3 days worked you start to feel that.
50% ... the border of fair and unfair. if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.
Now, when you are near that border of fair and unfair and then you see John Q Artist getting his whole list comped using tax money that pushes the somewhat fair into unfair territory real fast.
Now, we already have situations similar to this in most countries either from subsidies, gov't spending you don't agree with, corruption, waste, etc.
All of that should be reduced but when you see your neighbor living free while you slave away you feel that differently.
Which tax rates? We have dozens. What determines fairness is how the resources in our society are allocated once all is said and done. Income, tax rates, and even money itself is just an abstraction.
> if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.
How fairly you made that money in the first place and what you get in return in the form of government services makes all the difference.
> What determines fairness is how the resources in our society are allocated once all is said and done.
I propose allocating upfront the work, so that those who disagree don't have to contribute into the "done" part of those who allocate it in a weird way.
This is in no way a "if you're homeless just buy a house" argument, it's a "you can't have it both ways, pick a lane and stick to it" argument.
You want to unilaterally decide that you don't want to pay much tax on income, billionaires decide that they don't want to pay much tax on capital gains, yet both of you want to continue living in a society where you can buy cheap bread baked from flour milled from wheat grown on subsidized farms, heavily reliant on public infrastructure, and you want to drink clean water and drive on public roads, all of which is paid for through taxes that you want to opt out of, and somehow you don't see a problem with that?
You can't pick and choose parts of society that benefit you and opt out of your duties, that's not how society works. All of those parts that you don't see value in are essential to someone else.
For select megacorps that have the luxury of being in a business that lets them structure themselves that way, sure.
For the laboring peasantry it's a very different story (though the actual rates vary, this goes for most "tax havens"). Ireland in particular has a high VAT so if you spend a lot of your income on consumption (which most individuals do) you will get very screwed by that.
effective tax rates
0% ... not realistic outside very unique circumstances. 25% ... feels fair to me. 33% ... still fair but yeah 1 out of every 3 days worked you start to feel that. 50% ... the border of fair and unfair. if i keep less than half of what i make, that feeling of fairness wears thin.
Now, when you are near that border of fair and unfair and then you see John Q Artist getting his whole list comped using tax money that pushes the somewhat fair into unfair territory real fast.
Now, we already have situations similar to this in most countries either from subsidies, gov't spending you don't agree with, corruption, waste, etc.
All of that should be reduced but when you see your neighbor living free while you slave away you feel that differently.