Actually, that doesn't put him in the 1%. That number isn't "income"; he will be able to deduct all his business expenses and donations on his taxes. He's in

Actually, that doesn't put him in the 1%. That number isn't "income"; he will be able to deduct all his business expenses and donations on his taxes. He's in the top 96%, and will be paying a higher tax rate on that $220,000 than the 1% pays on their billions because it was earned through legitimate effort rather than off capital gains. Paying taxes isn't a penalty. If we charged 105% tax rate, it would be a punishment, but at any rate less than that it's not. He still pays no taxes on the first couple thousand, 15% on the first bit and so forth up the marginal tax rate chart, just like everyone else. And this makes sense, because each dollar you earn is worth less to you than the one before (declining marginal value is one of the fundamental principles of capitalism, after all.) Taking away an extra 1% of the income of someone on the edge means they stop having a house, or go hungry, or can't get to work and then loose far more than 1%. It is why the multiplier on money given to poor people is greater than 1; they will spend more extra money than you give them because they don't have enough money to be able to make the money they could make in the first place. If the government took an extra 1% of Louis CK's money above $250,000, he wouldn't even notice. If your son were, say, unemployed and living in your basement and you didn't charge him rent because he had no money, would you assume that when he got a job you wouldn't start charging him rent? Would failing to let him live rent-free for the rest of his life be "punishing" him for getting a job? While at the same time insisting that he pay you rent when he has no money and the alternative is that your son would end up out on the street also makes no sense, especially if the only reason you were doing so was because otherwise it would be unfair to his future self who would be punished by paying rent when his former self didn't have to. But you keep telling yourself whatever you need to to justify historically low taxes that allow all the money to collect at the top to people who don't work while letting our infrastructure crumble.