When the author says "ordinary Europeans...bring in 13 times more revenue than taxes on wealth", they seem to use this to justify a conclusion that we should therefore tax wealthy people more.
But I think what this reasoning misses is the minor effect increasing taxes on the wealthy would actually have. I think the proportion of people who are wealthy is so exceedingly small (in proportion) that even if they were to pay tax at 90%, the majority of tax revenue would still come from the average income masses. There are too few of them to move the needle.
Therefore, the argument that we should tax the wealthy more because of this statistic doesn't hold water.
But I think what this reasoning misses is the minor effect increasing taxes on the wealthy would actually have. I think the proportion of people who are wealthy is so exceedingly small (in proportion) that even if they were to pay tax at 90%, the majority of tax revenue would still come from the average income masses. There are too few of them to move the needle.
Therefore, the argument that we should tax the wealthy more because of this statistic doesn't hold water.