> If you remove the incentive to avoid, it'll be less worthwhile to avoid
Taxes are needed to pay for hospitals, teachers, firefighters... what happens if the amount that the 1% think is fine doesn't cover for that expenses? They have so much money that they can afford private version of that services. But what is in that model for the rest of citizens?
This is a problem between short term benefit for a few against long term losses for everyone. It is not possible to have a modern society with low rates of death by sickness and low levels of violence and crime if we can't afford to have in place none less improve all the current safeguards.
I don't know the answer to that.. maybe we need to be more efficient with the resources we use/allocate, or maybe we need to try and figure out how to make due with the tax income we have? Governments all over the world are constantly overspending. That's the nature of the beast. Give them X and they will spend X + 10. I wouldn't actually be surprised that we can make due with current (or even) lower overall tax income if we decide to allocate it properly.
Wealthy people can move relatively easily if they want to. If someone is worth $50m, he's really getting very little value from the system. Heavy shoulders should bear a heavier burden, I agree, but how far should that go? Maybe the maximum amount of tax should somehow be capped. Past a certain point, some people just get fed up with paying insane amounts of taxes. Proportionally (income wise) middle and lower income people are paying more in taxes then, but they are also getting more back in comparison to the guy who is worth $25-50m.
The rich benefit from a society where he can conduct profitable business. I think he benefits more than he cares to admit, because a more heavily taxed middle class is going to spend less, and that is going to affect his bottom line, one way or another.
You say they "get fed up with paying insane amount of taxes". All they have to do to stop paying so much in taxes is to stop accruing an insane amount or wealth.
The truth is more likely that their wealth has made them selfish and insensitive. As Leona Helmsley famously said "Only the little people pay taxes".
It might be interesting to know what percentage of thier offspring the wealthy are sending to fight and die in wars compared to everyone else.
What is missing from this view is that wealth is good. If you run a company (that isn't a monopoly) you will quickly realize the obvious:
The only way to create wealth is to give most of it (>50%, at least) away. You have to provide more value than the price of what you're providing.
It is a very good thing, for society, for you and me, that that wealth is created. If the rich ever "stop accruing an insane amount of wealth", that would be very bad. We don't want that. We want that wealth to be created.
And then there's the obvious fix: just have the government do it all. The problem with that is that it takes away the wealth creation motive and replaces it with raw power. The point of business, at that point, becomes advancing it's management position in the government, not to serve anyone. I very much prefer a lot of highly capable people working to provide more goods for me cheaper & better to a lot of highly capable people working to provide a tighter and more controlling government. So should you.
Look at a red state like South Carolina as an example.
Basic services like fire protection are membership based, folks who live in unincorporated territory have to BYO water, sewer, security, and poor folk are really poor.
Taxes are needed to pay for hospitals, teachers, firefighters... what happens if the amount that the 1% think is fine doesn't cover for that expenses? They have so much money that they can afford private version of that services. But what is in that model for the rest of citizens?
This is a problem between short term benefit for a few against long term losses for everyone. It is not possible to have a modern society with low rates of death by sickness and low levels of violence and crime if we can't afford to have in place none less improve all the current safeguards.