Yesterday during a discussion about the proposed tax policies of the presidential candidates, someone stated to me that the richest people pay the least taxes because it's not income, they are able to hide it from the fed so they get away with not paying their fair share. I provisionally agreed that the tax system is broken. What follows is yet another verbose way of saying, "Get the hell out of my way!" Those who come just to look at pictures of my family and not my political commentary, feel free to move along.
So not even digging into real numbers but just a thought experiment. Say there are 1000 people who make $100,000 for every 1 person who makes $1,000,000 a year. Just for dead simple math. If they were all taxed 10% that would be: $100,000 from the rich guy, and $1,000,000 from the non-rich group. This is total tax revenue of $1,100,000 and the rich guy accounted for only 9% of it. Looking at the number that way it seems small, the "working class" paid 91% of the tax burden. Of course individually they each accounted for only 0.09% versus the rich guy who paid as much as 100 of them combined. The real story is exceedingly more complicated than this, but the thought experiment is telling.
Also as a further and the only real argument against increasing taxes on rich. It is a penalty on the good for being the good. In order to be rich, you need to be very good at something. I have often heard there is some percentage of people who achieved wealth through fraud, theft or other less savory means. But I argue if they exist, they are the rare exception. To be a thief and get rich you have much more working against you. So if you are very good at something, does that mean you should be rewarded or punished? Of course rewarded. Should you have your reward taken by force because someone else "needs" your money. As wealth is created, it makes no sense to fairly distribute it as if it were an unowned natural resource. There can be no right to goods or services that need to be created by others. This includes wealth.
The rich guy had to use their mind to get rich. Without him there is no money to steal. I have to use my mind, my skill, my effort to design a communication system. If you "need" a communication system, does that give you the right to send armed thugs to my house and threaten me with imprisonment to force me to build it for you?
As a final interesting twist in my thought on this, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal: [Taxes are about fairness](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910117767951201.html) that addresses my point exactly and even brings up the question, that was posed to Senator Obama, and his answer. (which came up in my discussion mentioned above.) > ... even after ABC's Charlie Gibson noted that the record shows increased taxes on capital gains -- which would affect 100 million Americans -- would likely lead to a decrease in government revenues: "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness." > > Translated into ordinary English, what that means is that it doesn't really matter whether a tax increase actually brings in more revenue. It's not about robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Robbing from the rich will do, especially if it's done in the name of fairness.
Reason is man's means of survival. To see this, open your eyes, look around. You can't miss it. Government exists to protect each individuals survival, their use of reason, through protecting rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Infringing on the rights of one man for the benefit of another is always wrong.