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  Again cutting through the yah boo sucks political tennis going on here the reality is that punitive tax levels serve no-one well other than accountants and perhaps lawyers. All the evidence available is that tax levels much beyond 40% tend to be counter-productive and see significant rises in the use of legitimate tax avoidance schemes by those able to access them.
  
  As someone who unfortunately has a reasonable proportion of their salary taxed at 40% I would certainly feel very uncomfortable being asked to pay more, particularly as I use little or no public services (I am a single bloke, who puts out one rubbish bag every 2-3 weeks, does not use the library etc. last visited the doctors over 2 years ago etc etc)
  
  To be fair I do believe that as a productive member of society I should pay tax to cover such things as the NHS, the police, the military, education etc. but frankly there are limits.
  
  The fairest tax solution and by far and away the simplest is a flat rate tax (say 20%) on all income (including investment income etc) with a sensibly set personal tax free allowance of say £15k and absolutely no other allowances, exemptions etc. The rate of tax should also be the same for business so there is no advantage for sole traders in manipulating the income and dividends they take from their business. This approach protects low earners (effectively redistributing some wealth), but does not penalise the well off

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