UK - George Osborne seeks Revenue check on 50p tax rate

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14515518

Osborne's logic:

Rich are dodging their taxes....so we do away with their taxes. How does he keep from giggling when he says this stuff? 

Has he not thought about prosecuting tax evaders in order to a) raise revenue and b) motivate people to pay taxes who might otherwise break the law by evading them?  Cutting taxes on people who don't pay taxes doesn't seem like a way to get more money.

Idiots.

I see his point about "efficient" taxation - I mean if it costs more to collect a tax than the amount collected, or if the cost of increasing the take is more than the extra amount raised, there could be a case for taking a hard look at whether the taxation regime needs rejigging. However because he is a Tory I would want to take an equally hard look at his reasons for taking the position he does.

This is about the US and their plans to deal with national debt, but it probably applies here as well, especially when you're looking to eliminating a tax without replacing it with something else:

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich
By WARREN E. BUFFETT

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. [...]

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent. [...]

[After explaining the difference between payroll and other taxes, and on the subject of the oft repeated assertion that high capital gains tax kills investment, he brings up his own behaviour during the 80s and 90s when capital gains was higher]

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Well worth eating up a NYT page view to read the whole thing here.

This has been my beef with taxes all along.  I don't necessarily think that the wealthy need to pay more taxes than they get to take home.  However, if they paid a rate that was consistent with the average tax payer...say the 36% as illustrated above, that would go a long way to a more equitable society.