Practical definition: Confiscatory taxation

Posted by Marc Hodak on August 24, 2009 under Collectivist instinct, History, Invisible trade-offs, Revealed preference | Read the First Comment

Confiscatory taxation:  What is going on in Great Britain.

Contrast this with

Socialism:  Using state power to penalize success and reward failure.

Using the threat of violence to take an extra $50,000 from someone making $1 million is not considered a crime if implemented by authorities elected by the people who are, for the most part, not being taxed at that level.  In fact, these people call their confiscation the patriotic or moral thing to do.  They will claim that most of the people being taxed are actually OK with it; but they don’t dare let the class of people paying it vote on whether they should all do so.  They will claim that those who do not wish to pay it lose their claim to their money by virtue of their selfish desire to keep it; but they don’t see the irony of their preferences forcibly imposed on others as a baser form of selfishness, abetted as it is by coercion.

But the victims of this self-justified view of theft-disguised-as-patriotism-or-morality won’t sit still for the grasping hypocrisy.  They will leave.  They take their money and, more important, their wealth-creating talents, to friendlier climes.