Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

There's more to moving country than financial considerations. If not, why haven't all US tech execs moved to 0% tax countries rather than paying 38%?

Because countries with unfunded/weak/mob-style governance are generally unpleasant places to live. That I think raising the tax rate well above the western norm is a terrible idea does not imply that I am broadly anti-taxation. Not at all.

50-60% rate starting at much lower income (Ireland is a European tech hub and 52% starts at €34k) with 20%+ sales tax is very common in Western countries. Is that better or worse than 70% for incomes over eg. $10 million?

Ireland may be a "tech hub," but it has a very tough time keeping innovators at home (as does much of the rest of Europe). https://twitter.com/sknthla/status/1070031703421333504 …

This is a pretty narrow slice of all the possible effects of a change for the top marginal tax bracket. But let's zoom waaay out: should policy (including taxation) be based primarily on ideology or evidence? Serious non-gotcha question.

Agree. My key claims are that (a) economic policy outcome predictions broadly have a poor track record & the evidentiary value of modeling there is often illusory & (b) recent tech has created an absolute explosion of possible moves for actors, further increasing the difficulty

My view, generally, is this: start with an understanding of how incredibly advantageous the US's starting position is, a deep humility with regard to *anyone's* ability to make good predictions about increasingly complex systems, and move slowly + cautiously.

I think we have an overlapping Venn diagram. I am frankly befuddled about what to do (policywise) when evidence is less than definitive and ideologies collide. Maybe contingent legislation (ie start with approach A but if that fails switch to opposing approach B)?