Almost like the wealthy should be taxed 90% and healthcare should be free, and rent should be strictly regulated, and everyone should have a labor union.
How about this. If you make it to a net worth of $1 Billion, we get you a nice gold plaque that says, “Congratulations! You have won capitalism.” Then, any income you earn after that is taxed at 100%.
Income and net worth are different concepts though. You can have a car and be too broke to buy gas.
I think you might be failing to envision just how much money a billion dollars is. If your net worth (Assets - Liabilities + Equity) = one billion dollars, you are among the wealthiest of the wealthiest people in the world.
Now, that probably isn’t all just sitting in investments. I’ll be very conservative and say half of it is. If you earned 4% annually on that $500M, which is a pretty decent average, you would gross $20 Million.
I don’t know about you, but if I had $20 Million, I would never have to work another day for the rest of my life. You see where I’m going with this?
Well if they stop working they make 0. 10% of any income is still more than zero, and this would likely be bracketed so high that there’d be at least a million or two in lower tax bands.
Edit: also strictly, the comment you replied to said “the wealthy” this could refer to a wealth tax rather than an income tax, where stopping working would just remove the income but not affect the tax burden at all—i.e. a pretty terrible idea if you want to remain wealthy
What incentive is there to keep working at a 90% tax burden?
Why do people volunteer for free?
The Beatles’ “Taxman” refers to a 95% tax rate that they were complaining about. Yet they still went on to produce more records and earn more money (and yes, work).
If someone has enough money to live a life of luxury, they’ll keep doing what they do to earn that life of luxury.
People volunteer for causes they think are worthy. I would never do the work I get paid to do for free or for 10% of gross pay. I’d just find a less stressful job, work way less and make about the same.
No one makes that much money through work, it is through investments. Remove social security tax limits and beef up our nationalized retirement systems then tax investments to death. I don’t care if people are disincentivised from investing in businesses that don’t make any money. I know I’ll ruffle some feathers with this but I truly believe all space travel investments should be redirected to something that can make an immediate difference for those already on the planet, like healthcare or services for those effected by climate change.
