Yes, but it didn't kick in until your income got up over $1 million or so. This was actually common around the globe before the Reagan/Thatcher revolution. Remember the Beatles song "Taxman"?

"I'll tell you how it will be/ that's one for you nineteen for me/ 'cause I'm the Taxmaaaan!"

The Beatles were actually paying 19 out of every 20 cents to Her Majesty's government, for a top rate of 95%.

well, they paid 19 cents out of every 20 after the first million dollars.

It's still obscene, ugly, wrong, and basically slavery.

Please explain how it's slavery.

As I understand the libertarian argument (I can't promise that this is what Prrometheus means), a sketch looks like this:

Money is your property

Your body is your property

Slavery is foreign control of your body

Taxes are foreign control of your money

Thus, by the transitive property, taxes are like slavery

I wasn't even going that far. I can see how people consider it hyperbole to call taxes "slavery" when someone is taking 40% of your earnings from you. You still have more than half of what you earned to do with as you will. But 95%? You're basically working solely for the good of whoever is stealing from you. It's true that they're not forcing you to work, but you either give over almost all your earnings or go without any benefit from your labor at all.

I'm not the first to make the comparison, you know. I believe Frederick Douglas compared income taxes to slavery in his autobiography. Unfortunately, I listened to it on CD so I can't pull up the exact passage at the moment.

> But 95%? You're basically working solely for the good of whoever is stealing from you.

I don't disagree, and I'm a person of libertarian leanings. Although I grant I'm not as fully given over to it as you seem to be.

I really was just trying to elucidate the sense in which I see many libertarians compare taxes to slavery.