Why is taxing high earners more a good idea? It just gives people an incentive to either not make that much money or leave the country to make more money.
Not everyone grew up in an as money-centered society as the US. A middle class Swedish lifestyle is plentiful and way beyond the reach of most people in most countries, including most Europeans.
Whether you believe it or not, making 1.5x as much (or twice) in America is not that attractive for many people, especially because of how social issues are handled there. Not to mention family, friends etc. People aren't some mindless particles flowing towards more money.
That may be true, my perspective as a Canadian which is a fairly socialistic country compared to the US is a bit different. We have a massive problem with the brain drain as a lot of people who are college educated go to the US to earn higher salaries, especially in but not limited to tech. But its possible that the proximity to the US is a factor as you can still easily visit your friends and family in Canada while living in the US.
>We have a massive problem with the brain drain as a lot of people who are college educated go to the US to earn higher salaries, especially in but not limited to tech.
Anecdotally a lot of those same people are 1st generation immigrants, 2nd generation children of recent immigrants or are merely here for school from places such as China in the first place, and as such don't feel much of a tie to Canada or to being Canadian.
Not to mention that Canada, at least in the major English-speaking cities, does not have much of a residual sense of community left.
Hence the situation is very different to a largely homogeneous society with an inherent sense of shared identity such as Sweden.
> I dont think people are leaving Canada because they have to pay higher taxes or because they hate the healthcare system.
That's not what I said at all. I said Canadians are leaving Canada because they can make more money outside of Canada(ie. like close to double the salary in some cases). Raising taxes is not going to encourage them to stay if they are leaving because of monetary reasons.
>"Taxes are high so I won't try to make more money" - No one ever.
No, but the Swiss banking system, Panama Papers, Canadian shadow company situation et al. can attest to the fact that when income / wealth rises to a certain level and those who've earned / attained it feel the level of tax being levied at them is of an unfair level, a vast amount of money that could be taxed will be off-shored.
Everyone, particularly those in areas with a low sense of shared identity and the mutual obligations that comes with it, will try to minimize their tax bill some way or another and once one attains a certain level they will unlock mechanisms to avoid tax at a level that will be detrimental to the rest of the players in their given system.
There are lots of people who don't try to make more money because of roadblocks put in by the government. Obviously the uber-rich like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates don't care that much about taxes but for someone in the low to middle income brackets it can be challenging to move up as you pay more in taxes and receive less help from the government.
If you make enough money that you can live comfortably and you would have to move up a lot to counter the offset to make more money in the next tax bracket, I think the majority of people would not bother. Outside of HN, a lot of people are satisfied with making an okay salary and having steep tax bracket changes just amplifies that. Obviously, everyone would like to make more money if they could do so easily but if it is very difficult to do so, a lot of people will not be bothered.
The people who do want to make a lot of money and become rich, well if they have to deal with crazy taxes, they are going to either find away around the tax laws, or simply leave the country which both options are not good for the country.
> Obviously the uber-rich like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates don't care that much about taxes but for someone in the low to middle income brackets it can be challenging to move up as you pay more in taxes and receive less help from the government.
The people in the middle income brackets don't want to move up, in the sense that they don't want to work 20% harder, to get a 3% increase in their paycheck. (Which is how most employers 'reward' hard work.)
That's because effort and remuneration aren't linked in a 1:1 fashion, not because the marginal tax bracket for the next dollar they earn is three percent higher than the previous one.
