I have said that taxing certain sectors of society more will actually decrease, the most recent and public evidence of this was U2 moving elements of their business to the Netherlands. What we don’t see on the front of the paper are the myriad of people who silently seek to do the same as the tax regime is tightened.
We have stated before that 50% of the tax take is paid for by the top 6.5% of workers, which is why I believe that a new ‘super tax’ for people earning more than €100,000 (for instance – nothing has been announced at the time of writing this) is actually a mistake. Why? Because there will be a surprising number of people who used to earn €150,000 or whatever amount above this you want to take, who will instead change their wages to €99,000 and leave the rest as retained earnings, increased pension contributions, use as expenses etc. etc.
This doesn’t help to push money into the economy, it …