I invite you to read this article about Denmark ("The happiest place on earth") circa 2007: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4086092&page=1 From the article: "The happiest people in the world pay some of the highest taxes in the world -- between 50 percent and 70 percent of their incomes"

I know this thread is not related to happiness, but I do think there is a correlation between poverty and happiness. It's hard to be happy when you can't put food on the table (let alone pay for an education) for your children.

To be honest, probably nothing. Rich people are pretty much pros at operating tax shelters, which explains the famous Buffet quote about how he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

No, it's better/worse than that. Long-term capital gains (held more than one year) are taxed at 15% for someone like Buffet. He paid a lower rate (17.7% combined short-term and long-term) on taxes than his secretary without trying to avoid taxes.

Yes. However, increasing it from the current 15% to 35% or 38% probably wouldn't affect it much.

Well, I guess a lot of people do it for the money as well as the fulfillment of building a great company.

Relocation to a different country is always an option.

It is an option, but an intentionally-difficult one. It is often easier to move products across borders than people. The nice thing about the Internet is that you don't always have to care.