Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Dec 31
st, 2012 at 5:44am:
180k is not middle income.
SOB
andrei is fairly correct.
most of the very rich pay very little.
$180 k is a level where many of the most productive people in the economy operate.
your best IT people, the cream of tradesmen, engineers, your best farmers, financial services workers, many small business owners will spend quite a lot of time in this bracket.
at 47 % tax, you are putting them on 1/2 wages and many just ease up . thi may be a good thing for them persoanlly. some will get into the very destructive and economy distorting games.....negative gearing
, leverage in shares
investing off shore
, private super(expensive and removing productive assets out of business investment and having them "mpth balled"
.
so whilst no one is starving on $180 k, by exclusively attacking them, the public really shoot themselves in the foot.
many of our brightest science, medical, business people up root and head of to dubai, hong kong , singapore, where they are welcomed with open arms.