The top 1% was never really the top 1%...

[Anonymous]

The median top 1% of US tax-payer are only around incomes of $300,000 and most of these people are specialists, small business owners and just highly-skilled workers. They aren't the "capitalists" that are fucking us over. It's hard to believe the creme-of-the-crop billionaires are either. Warren Buffet and friends seem more and more like puppets every time I hear them spew their "raise our taxes" propaganda as they funnel their wealth into stealthy foundations.

It's really hard to believe it ends at these suckers we see on mainstream television. The fact is the true crony-capitalists, the true powerful elite have their wealth in secret. I mean, this truth is in plain sight. There's been plenty of eyewitness accounts who have quoted the Rockefeller and Rothschild family's bank accounts not in the billions but trillions. Oh, and they aren't paying taxes: they're collecting them from the central banking system.

Here's the hard truth liberals:

You got nothing on the true 1%. They have a hold of your governments and the whole financial system. You might as well throw in the towel trying to fuck anyone over through tax reform. The true enemies are on high ground in their own sovereign entity and you aren't invited.

[Hawker]

Your argument is a variant on the Laffer Curve, that the rich can hide their money so there is no point is raising taxes on the rich.  Its actually one of the great questions of our age.  Does the Laffer curve exist or do increased taxes on higher earners simply cause them to hide their income.

Two years ago, the Labour government in the UK introduced a 50% tax rate on people's income over the equivalent of $200,000 per year compared with 40% on income over $50,000.

Next year will see the publication of the first year of full audited accounts showing the effect of the tax and the money raised.  The interesting thing is that both left and right are pumping out news releases and editorials desperately trying to pre-empt these accounts.  My betting is that the tax will have cost money in avoided taxes but at least in 12 months the question will at last have some empirical evidence.