"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind."
I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes".
One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high.
The other is a high percentage tax rate.
I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in which one can think fondly of all the things that government provides - things like:
"It's a repayment for all those years I was poor and the government paid for me to live and go to school."
However, there comes a point in percentage tax rates where basic fairness comes into question. I'm sure it varies from person to person, but I think an effective tax rate north of 40% is getting in the danger zone.
As a US citizen who lives in California, in Marin, and owns land, my effective tax rate is 50%, give or take, and I think that's a problem. It's very difficult to rationalize that every 60 minutes I work, ~30 minutes of that work product is appropriated by government.
I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes".
One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high.
The other is a high percentage tax rate.
I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in which one can think fondly of all the things that government provides - things like:
"It's a repayment for all those years I was poor and the government paid for me to live and go to school."
However, there comes a point in percentage tax rates where basic fairness comes into question. I'm sure it varies from person to person, but I think an effective tax rate north of 40% is getting in the danger zone.
As a US citizen who lives in California, in Marin, and owns land, my effective tax rate is 50%, give or take, and I think that's a problem. It's very difficult to rationalize that every 60 minutes I work, ~30 minutes of that work product is appropriated by government.