But why? I mean, are you just rationalizing? "I think 50% taxes is a lot just because I do, therefore I think it's bad policy." Or is there a logical reason that 50% is "a bit silly" but, say, 30% (or whatever your number is) is fine?

This is something that Nobel prize-winning economists fight over -- exactly how high a tax rate is too high? -- so I kind of doubt we're going to resolve it here on HN. My point is that we all have feelings ("I don't like the color mauve", "50% taxes rubs me the wrong way"), but these have to be separate from motives for enacting policy.

And when you factor in other taxes, you pay more than 50%, it's too much.

And if I choose not to pay those taxes, my freedom is taken away, so don't tell me the slave point is invalid.

No one getting taxed at an effective 50% tax rate in the United States is anywhere near a slave. The minimum wage McDonald's worker with a 15% tax rate is the slave.

There isn't a rational difference between 30 and 50, the only difference is "I feel that it is too much", right?

50% is 84 hours/week, we as a society have already deemed the difference between those to be significant enough to fight about.

The difference between 50% of your income and 30% of your income is significant.

No, I don't think I am rationalizing or being irrational.

Note: I don't make any claims to know what the right overall tax rate is - if you're asking me about 32% vs. 38% vs. 29% ... I am as lost as you, and those economists, are.

However I think that 1/2 is not an arbitrary point on that scale - I think there is a qualitative difference between more than one half and less than one half.

If I am assessed more than one half of what I earn, that's unfair in a way that I believe appeals to innate concepts of fairness that we all share, rather than "I just don't like that number".

10% will be enough in the future, except for those countries in war, like US always will be.

Great chart in here about USA tax burden being below average: https://taxfoundation.org/comparison-tax-burden-labor-oecd-2...

You are entitled of what you've done, period.

Anything above 10% is theft.

"Times of higher tax burden have been economically more productive" -> this is just false, a falacy. Prove it somehow.

Sweden was a very rich nation before high taxes, now it's just rich, net jobs after high taxation in 50 years is ZERO. They are just letting go now, cutting taxes more and more.

I wonder why US economy is booming right now, maybe because Trump is going to cut taxes?!

Oops...

Capitalism is a system, like any other, created by humans and not found in nature. "Ownership" is not some property of matter; what it means to own something is that there is a legal system that supports that deed and an armed police and military to enforce it. There is no concept of ownership except for a truly anarchic "everything I own is in a box that I have the key to" idea that does not require other people to guarantee your property rights.