Income Tax Theories - The Laffer Curve - Who pays how much?

The Laffer Curve is aptly named after Professor Art Laffer. He was an advisor to President Reagan in the early 1980s, but, despite that, he has become quite well known through his 'curve'! He suggested that, as taxes increased from fairly low levels, tax revenue received by the government would also increase. However, as tax rates rose, there would come a point where people would not regard it as worth working so hard. This lack of incentives would lead to a fall in income and therefore a fall in tax revenue. The logical end-point is with tax rates at 100% where no one would bother to work (understandably!) and so tax revenue would become zero.

This is illustrated by the Laffer Curve:

T* represents the optimum tax rate where the maximum amount of tax revenue can be collected. Laffer and other right-wing economists used the curve to argue that taxes were currently too high and should therefore be reduced to encourage incentives and harder work (a supply-side policy). Others argue that we are already well to the left of T*. Why not try to test the theory on the Virtual Economy model ? It should be a Laff - er minute!!