The new Apple headquarters there looks about as big as a football stadium. Thousands of employees will be paying taxes to a town of only 60,000 residents. It’s never enough though. If governments could enforce a 100% tax rate, they would.
Back when the late Sen. Arlen Spector was portraying a Republican, he tried to illustrate the folly of increasing a tax rate and expecting revenue to always go, not only up, but up in direct proportion to the tax rate. He interviewed a witness before a committee, and in doing so he asked the CBO rep how much revenue they would score for a certain tax at a certain rate. He started out at the current rate, and incrementally increased the (notional) tax rate, and asked what the scored revenue would be.The witness's answers betrayed an exactly linear assumption, unabated all the way to a 100% notional tax rate, at which Sen. Spector announced, “I give up!” Upon reflection, I concluded that he should have then doubled and redoubled the notional tax rate to 200%, 400%, whatever it took. At some point the witness would have to fail the laugh test.