Seventy percent taxes coming eventually.

In Greece, payroll tax, value added tax, and income tax adds up to around seventy percent.  It is perfectly clear that this is far above the Laffer limit – the private sector in Greece is largely underground and not quite cash, like a third world country.  If someone is employed by the state he pays taxes on his income because employed by the state, but does not actually do any work, because employed by the state.  If someone is not employed by the state, he usually finds a way to make a living that does not exactly involve taxable income as such, so he seldom actually does any taxable work.

But the Cathedral is not much affected by contact with reality.  Dylan Matthews took a survey of  the elite, to ask them where the Laffer curve maxed, and all of them that were among our masters answered 69% or 70%, or refused to answer. Such a high value is improbable, but what is really improbable is such perfect agreement on such an uncertain number. You cannot get perfect agreement on anything unless it is official Cathedral doctrine. And if a high Laffer maximum is Cathedral doctrine, then actions that would be insane unless you believe in a high Laffer maximum are the Cathedral program

2 Responses to “Seventy percent taxes coming eventually.”

  1. Fanwank says:

    Speaking of taxes…

    What effect do you think the recent elections in Australia will have on the natural resources tax?

    • jim says:

      Government always gets bigger and more expensive. Taxes, on the other hand, are always unpopular, even when they are on a small number of really rich people. So any time you hold an election, taxes rises go away – for a while.

Leave a Reply for Fanwank