[javaru]

I would say that the society's most successful are often the ones benefiting the most from the law and order provided by government. If the highway, mail, law enforcement, and judicial systems, for example, didn't work as well, it would be much harder to create a successful business.

[michaelcampbell]

> I would say that the society's most successful are often the ones benefiting the most from the law and order provided by government.

Even if that were so, (any citations there? The assertion is almost laughable.), it's not what the argument being made is saying. The argument is being made that these institutions are somehow providing MORE value to the successful, so the more successful owe more for their use.

Which is simply not true. If a clever, successful person is somehow making more or better use of these tax-funded services, that's the side effect of him being clever or successful, not that the service has provided him some sort of hidden value that the less successful cannot take part of, and for which the successful person "owes" more because of.

[ryanwaggoner]

Yes, and they're already paying much, much more than the less successful by virtue of the fact that they make more. But by taxing at a higher rate because they have more money, you're effectively punishing them for success. It'd be a like a VC demanding that if you exit at $10m, you owe them $3m, but if you exit at $1b, you owe them $500m.

[rbranson]

You aren't punishing them for success. For a whole lot of reasons, the fact of the matter is, the value of individual units of money (one dollar) DECREASES non-linearly as your personal supply increases. When you were making $50k/yr, you'd probably be quite careful with how you allocated $500, because it represented a sizable chunk of your time. Now that you make $5m/yr, $500 is literally worth to you what $5 was when you were making $50k/yr. Throw away money.

[michaelcampbell]

And a non progressive tax rate does exactly that.

> You aren't punishing them for success.

Simply saying that doesn't make it so. If you make more and are more successful you are taxed at a higher rate. This is the very definition of being punished for being successful.

> For a whole lot of reasons, the fact of the matter is, the value of individual units of money (one dollar) DECREASES non-linearly as your personal supply increases.

Can you list some? How is the $10 I pay in taxes that gets allocated to some department of the government any more or less than the $10 that someone else has paid, at a different tax rate? It might be non-linear to the PAYER, but that's irrelevant; it's exactly the same to the PAYEE.

Whether or not someone can /afford/ a higher tax rate based on income is irrelevant and stems from an emotional argument, not a fiscal or economic one. <snark>And a sour grapes, juvenile "IT'S NOT FAIR!", wealth-redistribution based one at that. My 9 year old has these sorts of ideas.</snark>

[slpsys]

Except that example assumes perfect fungibility. There's no guarantee PayPal would be a huge company if it were founded in England, Ireland, et al.

[slpsys]

Exactly. "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." It's not as if wealth can be generated from the void. The top 1% often give so graciously to the universities that made it possible, but complain heartily about the governmental institutions that have, as well.