"High Rates Don't Always Deliver ...High Revenues"

I was telling Doug that I have been deliberately not posting for many weeks, for the simple reason that many of the policy issues that I wish to address (such as the marginalization of the voluntary and faith sectors from the public sphere) have become highly partisan at this point in the election cycle, and I don't want to post a partisan politics blog. However, here is a good economics example from outside the United States. In the U.K. the coalition government imposed a new surtax on wealthy individuals. The result has been....lower tax revenue. Humans are not electrons; they adjust to incentives, and apparently wealthy individuals in Britain were easily able to adjust their economic activity to avoid the tax. Now, there is a broad call for repeal of the tax as a fear that Britain is losing a generation of entrepreneurs creeps in. Here's the article with the details (thanks to HotAir for the tip).