Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy.
As of 2009, it's 236,883 people. That's less than 1 in a thousand. With more income in a single year than most people in the U.S. earn in a lifetime, they'll certainly still be much more than quite comfortable.
Most of the people in this class are able to hire accountants and re-classify much of their income in such a way as to avoid the taxes.
Part of the problem when you start talking about massive tax bills is that the higher the tax, the higher the return on investment from avoiding it. So if you can pay an accountant $500,000 to set up a bunch of shell corporations and trusts as legal tax shelters that will save you $5,000,000, you'll do it in a heartbeat.
Add in Citizens United to the mix and you can see where this is going. If it's suddenly a great return on investment to lobby Congress to introduce a tax loophole, people will do it. The entire premise of modern corporate finance is that if you don't like what a company is doing with your investment, you are free to cash out your investment and invest in something else. That doesn't work with governments; but it doesn't prevent people from trying to apply the same attitudes.
>>> Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy.
What do you think happens to anybody, let alone people who are really rich when you continually increase their taxes? They stop spending, they start hiding their money, they it send it to foreign countries, they will find ways around the taxes you're trying to levy against them.
It doesn't matter who you tax, they're going to try and avoid paying taxes regardless. People have this notion that since they're super wealthy, they have money to burn - which is hardly the case. Most people making over $1 million per year live a lifestyle that's congruent to the money they're making. You think those people are thinking , "Aye, it's only 10K more to the governmnet, no big deal?", right?. Hardly. They want to hold onto their money just as much as the next guy.
Unfortunately, the article isn't very clear about what the problem statement is for which basic income is the proposed solution. But assuming it is something like "people are having trouble participating in the economy, which is a drag on our society's standard of living", I don't see how "increased federal income" is a solution. What do you propose the government do with its newfound wealth to solve these problems? "Tax the rich" might be a decent tactic, but it certainly isn't a good strategy.
Progressive tax on incomes >$1,000,000. This won't slow anyone down except the ultra-wealthy.
As of 2009, it's 236,883 people. That's less than 1 in a thousand. With more income in a single year than most people in the U.S. earn in a lifetime, they'll certainly still be much more than quite comfortable.