Super-Tax the Super-Rich

The following e-mail was sent to the New York Times in response to an article in their "Current" section of March 18, 2007:

Gregg Easterbrook's logic regarding the cause and effects of the super-rich ("A wealth of cheapskates") is convoluted. The middle class is not better off because the super-rich are much richer; both have benefited from improvements in technology and productivity. There is no good reason why those with very high incomes should not be taxed at much higher rates. Certainly anyone with a $10 million dollar annual income can get by comfortably on $6 million dollars a year. On that basis I propose the following tax rate: make the rate percent simply one-tenth of the log (to the base 10) of the annual income in thousands. So a condensed tax table would look like this:

Income....Tax Rate....Tax.....After Taxes

$10K..........10%........$1K........$9K
$100K........20%........$20K......$80K
$1M...........30%........$300K.....$700K
$10M.........40%........$4M........$6M
$100..........50%........$50M......$50M
$1B............60%........$600M....$400M

Once we have a Democratic Congress and president, and some reasonable campaign funding reform, perhaps we could get something along these lines. The middle class would see significant tax relief, thereby spurring on the economy, the national debt would be trimmed and the very rich would hardly notice the difference.