Confiscatory taxes will drive citizens out

Dear Editor:
Ms. Miner’s column in last week’s paper proves two things: (1) she’s not too familiar with economic history, and (2) she’s mathematically challenged.
To take the second point first, 10 percent of $50,000 is proportionately identical to 10 percent of $50,000,000. Of course, five thousand is a lot less – in fact it’s 1/1,000 – of five million, but proportionately they’re identical. That’s what a percentage is, a proportion. As a side note, I don’t think Dr. Carson’s proposed flat tax of 10 percent is enough; while God only wants 10 percent to run the whole planet, the U.S. government will need at least 25 percent and probably a lot more, even if all tax deductions (such as mortgage interest) are eliminated.
On the first point, every single time the marginal tax rate (the tax on the upper levels of income) has been reduced, the amount of revenue the government received went up – in other words the government made more money when the top tax rate was 40 percent than it did when the top tax rate was 90 percent. There’s a very simple reason for this: if the government is going to take 90 percent of what I earn, I’ll quit working; 90 percent of $0 is $0. Likewise, other people subject to the confiscatory tax rates Ms. Miner supports structure their investments to reduce their incomes and minimize their tax exposure.
This calls to mind a 20-year-old post on Fidonet I recently re-read. It seems a lady student – an accounting major, no less – was incensed because a wealthy person paid no income tax. Of course, for the tax year under discussion the person had suffered a loss of income, but she contended that he should still have to pay income tax even though he had negative income. She – and others such as Ms. Miner – don’t understand that it’s an income tax, not a wealth tax; the federal government can’t tax wealth, it can only tax incomes, thus sayeth the Constitution of the United States. The politics of envy that Ms. Miner and others such as Mr. Sanders and Ms. Clinton are pushing is impervious to logic and facts.
The same thing happens when the minimum wage is increased; jobs go away and prices go up. That’s happened every time the minimum wage has been increased ever since it was enacted. Every. Single. Time.
A point Ms. Miner and Mr. Sanders might want to keep in mind is the fact that for the past several years, each year a slowly growing number of American citizens have been emigrating to other countries, taking their assets with them and renouncing their U.S. citizenship. While I’m sure Ms. Miner and Mr. Sanders are quite happy that a few people have moved to the U.S. to escape the confiscatory taxes in their home countries (Bjorn Borg of Sweden and the late John Lennon of Britain to name two) they’ll be appalled if people start moving out of this country to escape the taxes here (and try to prevent it from happening, both Ms. Clinton and the late Ted Kennedy proposed at ‘exit tax’ of 95 percent on people who want to leave the country).
Bob Ackley
Emerson