There was a NY law that raised state taxes quite considerably on high incomes followed by a study to see if people responded to this by moving across the river to live in New Jersey where taxes were lower. Turns out they couldnt be bothered: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/quelle-surprise-tax-...

A legion of people uprooting their entire life in response to a tax hike is threatened constantly in the MSM but pretty uncommon in reality.

On the other hand companies that can change their tax residency just by saying "this is our new HQ" will yes, seek out tax havens because there's almost no cost to "moving". With political will, it would be pretty trivial to enact legislation to say that the company gets taxed based upon where they actually are.

As to why that doesnt happen see my original point: A) Congress doesnt work for you B) the media acts like you could never really close these loopholes.

This does hit home. My significant other got a 600€/month pre-tax raise. Her net raise? 120€. She could actually go work 80% and hardly lose anything at all.

I did that for a while just because. Three day weekends are nice even without the rationale of progressive taxation.

Overall I'm not sure if a tax that encouraged it would be such a bad thing. It's obviously against the protestant work ethic which makes it seem almost unthinkable in America but it'd probably be healthier overall.