> Throwing up your arms and saying "well we can't tax the rich, they're too powerful and wily, and will easily commit tax fraud to evade those taxes, and in actuality you'll bring in less money" is exactly the weak attitude that stalls efforts to fund vital services.

It goes further than that, it is the exact argument made by wealthy people as to why we shouldn't tax them more aggressively. Parroting that argument is ludicrous unless you're considerably wealthy yourself.