[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.