Quote from poyayan:
Income will always be taxed more than capital gain.
People can't move but money can..It is a matter of supply and demand.
I give you an example. The company I work for registered in Singapore, but almost all its R&D operations are in the US.
Our customer assemble everything outside of US and our manufacturing is sub-contract out too. So, basically, our company only pay US tax when our customer sell its product back to US. All international sales has no US tax in it whatsoever.
On a historic basis you are absoloutely correct -- the rational for taxing labor at a higher rate was that it was locked in, it could not move. And of course capital always moved away from exxecisive taxation.
One of our current problems is the way large sophisticated multi-nationals outsource they are effectively moving the work to a seperate pool of low wage workers.
I think tax policies will need to recognize that the old concept of labor being "locked in" is outdated. It is now laborers who are locked in but the actual labor, although it is not as mobile as capital, is far more mobile than ever before.
Tommy
It is a matter of supply and demand.