Why have higher taxation?

Basically the aim of taxation is to take money from those who don't need it and to redistribute it to people or important projects that do, while making sure that richer people are still richer people. Higher tax rates on the rich means taking more money from those with little need for it, and thus being able to allocate more money towards welfare. There's not much of an ethical problem with this, however if you go overboard you'll get rich people moving abroad, which is not too good for our economy.

It seems to be a common argument by many on the left nowadays to massively increase taxation on the rich. I know, admittedly, very little about economics but with the findings of the laffer curve, how can high taxation be argued for?

For those talking about England having a progressive tax system you could argue that is not the case. Though we have a progressive personal income system allot of the others are regressive and actually bring us back to a near regressive tax system e.g. VAT, national insurance (not technically a tax but still), council tax and excise duty. So surely a care can be made for increasing the top tax rate to cover for the regressive nature of other taxes?


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If the paper you refer to is this one with the standard leftist answer of "make the rich pay a bazillion dollars" the ASI take the methodology and apply it to the UK giving low 40s before including other factors that would bring it down, namely that if somebody in the UK doesn't like their tax rate they bugger off to somewhere cheaper, while a US citizen can't do that to the same extent.

Alternatively there is the empirical evidence of the behavioral changes caused by the top tax rate being cut from 50% to 45% meaning the losses went from a forecast £3.5bn a year without any behavioral impact down to an actual reduction in revenues of only £100m, and you have a piece here from the IFS on this, or more specifically Balls and Miliband wanting to bring back the 50% rate, which has their figures as well as those of the Treasury and OBR showing the mid 40s to be around about the peak, specifically they quote to chair of the OBR, with regards to the cut, saying we were “strolling across the summit of the Laffer curve”.

It seems to be a common argument by many on the left nowadays to massively increase taxation on the rich. I know, admittedly, very little about economics but with the findings of the laffer curve, how can high taxation be argued for?

So you don't see punishing success as an ethical issue, or even in a world where people for some reason believe everybody is and should be treated equally, advocating discrimination on the grounds of income?

So you don't see punishing success as an ethical issue, or even in a world where people for some reason believe everybody is and should be treated equally, advocating discrimination on the grounds of income?

If the paper you refer to is this one with the standard leftist answer of "make the rich pay a bazillion dollars" the ASI take the methodology and apply it to the UK giving low 40s before including other factors that would bring it down, namely that if somebody in the UK doesn't like their tax rate they bugger off to somewhere cheaper, while a US citizen can't do that to the same extent.

Alternatively there is the empirical evidence of the behavioral changes caused by the top tax rate being cut from 50% to 45% meaning the losses went from a forecast £3.5bn a year without any behavioral impact down to an actual reduction in revenues of only £100m, and you have a piece here from the IFS on this, or more specifically Balls and Miliband wanting to bring back the 50% rate, which has their figures as well as those of the Treasury and OBR showing the mid 40s to be around about the peak, specifically they quote to chair of the OBR, with regards to the cut, saying we were “strolling across the summit of the Laffer curve”.

On a fundamental level most people either believe that government spends too much (most Tories) or that spending money will solve all problems (i.e. the people that think the NHS is about to collapse).

The lafer curve actually illustrates that their is a maximum tax rate before diminished returns set in, it does not say that you can't raise taxes (that depends how close we are to that optimum revenue raising rate). I of course don't support higher taxes.

The Laffer Curve is useless.