Vastly Discordant Remunerations

Case for Modestly Higher Progressive Taxation

Dr A G Alias

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English

Litprime Solutions
24 June 2024

Political economy; Public finance

"This book discusses the disparity between earnings based on skill and effort and the exceedingly high incomes and wealth accumulated by some individuals, suggesting that while these fortunes may be legal, they often lack justification. It argues that society should not confiscate these funds but should implement a reasonable taxation system. Specifically, it advocates for progressive taxation, labeling very high taxes like the 91% rate during the Eisenhower era as ""drastic"" and unsustainable due to natural economic forces.

From the Reagan presidency onward, tax policies have favored the wealthy with less progressive tax structures, a trend broken intermittently, as during the Clinton administration and reversed significantly by the 2017 tax cuts. The ease of implementing tax cuts for the rich versus raising their taxes is noted, with the observation that the poor, the primary beneficiaries of more equitable tax distribution, often do not perceive the immediate impact of these cuts as acutely as they feel direct costs like rising grocery prices.

The book criticizes the prevalent but inaccurate belief that the wealthy bear all tax burdens while the poor receive undue benefits. It suggests a modest wealth tax, as proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, could replace inheritance taxes if well designed. Additionally, moderate tax increases on the top 0.1% of earners could fund essential public services and social safety nets, significantly benefiting society. The proposal includes new tax brackets of 40% and 45% between the existing 37% and a proposed 50% rate, and even higher rates of 60% and 70% for incomes over $50 million and $100 million respectively, to address financial inequality and potentially reduce the national deficit.

Historical context is provided with reference to tax rates from 1965 to 1981, where a 70% top rate applied to incomes equivalent to about $1 million in 2020 dollars. Economists like Robert Reich and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman support high top tax rates, with Krugman suggesting that the optimal rate for maximizing tax revenue without detrimental effects on the economy might be around 73%."

By: Dr A G Alias
Imprint: Litprime Solutions
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 5mm
Weight: 141g
ISBN: 9798887033723
Pages: 88
Publication Date: 24 June 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

"I am a retired Indian American psychiatrist, arrived in the USA in 1971. I have over fourteen, (only but) mostly single-author publications to my credit, including a short one in The Lancet - ""Androgen-Dysgenesis: A Predisposing Factor in Schizophrenia?"" (1972), which is more relevant now, with the discovery of neuroactive sex-steroids in the brain than in the 1970s when some complex combination of hyper as well as hypoactivity in the dopamine system in critical brain sites was seen as the determinant of schizophrenic psychopathology.I sensed schizophrenia more as a quantitative variation from a ""mean normal"" psyche rather than as a qualitative variation. Behavioral scientists by and large, however, view schizophrenia more as a qualitative variation with hallucinations and delusions, so do the educated lay public. Genetic studies of the recent past, however, seem to cast doubts on a too narrower view of schizophrenic psychopathology, to confine the search in the dopamine system. Besides, neuroactive steroids influence the ""dopamine system,"" as well as other neurotransmitters in a variety of ways. I have been suffering from an enduring depression, which was mixed with an underlying hypomania, so to speak, almost all my life, which I suspected could also be a case of dormant schizophrenia. But this dormant schizophrenia helped me, I believe to develop a better insight into the psychopathology of schizophrenia. I had a fairly typical migraine with aura, in the form of scotoma, since age 15. (Since 1965, I have been taking smaller doses of amitriptyline, works as a prophylactic to migraine, and other antidepressants [higher doses induced anxiety, becoming tongue-tied while speaking], as well as a tiny dose of a long-acting benzodiazepine, like Valium, just 1 mg daily lately; both of which have been substantially beneficial, though medication has its limitations - Until 1971, I took 15 mg of phenobarbital, when I needed to speak to an audience, which eased my stage fright. A prominent Ayurvedic physician in Kerala treated me in 1952, for my migraine with a medicated oil to be applied on the scalp, along with some other Ayurvedic medicines including a purgative. He strongly advised me against engaging in both mental and physical heavy work. I took it to heart, ""forcing"" myself to be lazy, without sensing that I was already habitually lazy, and becoming still lazier ever since. But my migraine disappeared except once when I was 'burning midnight oil' while preparing for a midterm college examination/test. Some readers may be interested in this elaboration: Before I ever experienced my migraine ""attacks,"" if I took a nap during the daytime, I sensed unusual nausea after I woke up. I then automatically [without any training] and forcefully would exhale through my nose, which was audible to others."