We are fools to believe high tax myth

We as a polity are not big on evidence-based policy. We rather form an opinion, then seek evidence for it, or better yet, stay silent. This leads to sub-optimal decision making, to put it mildly, writes Brian Lucey.

A big plank of the government plan to win re-election is to cut tax. Time and again we are told that we are a high-tax economy, that the tax burden is driving people out and preventing people from coming in, that the tax burden is crushing etc.

Much of the debate revolves crudely around the rates and incidence of personal taxation – there is an emerging shibbolethic consensus that an all-in marginal rate of less than 50% is the sign of a modern economy, with the unspoken assumption that rates above that are the mark of godless communism.