why economics helps to provide frameworks but not answers etc
RPRT said this bit
about whether raising the tax rate led to more revenue or not/elasticity of supply
We all did this
JY was spoofing me about the nice bit!!
Is hurt
The laffer curve suggests that above 40p in the £1, the more tax is raised the less revenue is received.
The laffer curve is not at all represented by real world data though
The questions is whether we can afford to keep it?
Is it not whether we can afford to let the richest mebers of society continue to avoid tax? It is rather unfortunate that the poorest must pay all their tax burden but the richest can avoid theirs and we should change the law to reflect their avoidance rather than enforce better - would you like to generalise this princciple to all laws?
If the government scraps the 50% rate, they could use the money to lift more lower earners out of tax? Who could argue with that?
I , for one, am cetain that the reason the conservatives [ the lib dems aint keen]want to reduce the 50% tax rate is so they can unburden poor people from taxes rather than help the rich
Even if i were to accept that higher tax rates lead to reduced incomes [ I dont] the answer is to close the loopholes they exploit rather than to capitualte to them and alter the law. We do not do this in other areas - drugs law, speed limits, prostitution etc - we increase enforcement.
This argument that you want to do it to increase tax returns is BS as closing loopholes and other methods would achieve the same result.
Politics of envy
This is such a lazy slur - like me calling your view the politics of greed. The redistribution of wealth would inevitably mean the majority being better off and a fairer world. They/we are more egalitarian than you. Envy means I want what they have when in reality I want a fairer distribution of wealth - much harder to attack someone for wanting fairness though hence the slur.
