I have a weird take on income tax. In my opinion it's not a tax on the employee but on the employer and one of very few solid methods of actually taxing the ri

I have a weird take on income tax. In my opinion it's not a tax on the employee but on the employer and one of very few solid methods of actually taxing the rich (for as long as the rich need labor to get richer). Your income tax money never reaches your pocket so it's never a part of your actual income and if employer didn't pay your income tax, they are (not you) on the hook for that. And if income tax rate was lowered to zero, the employer wouldn't automatically start paying you that much more. There would be a renegotiation and most of that money would stay with the employer, because you already agreed and demonstrate that you can work for as little as you do. Of course in specific cases that the position of the employee in the market is very strong, some companies might choose to use the money they don't have to pay as your income tax to compete for employers by offering higher salaries. But that's definitely not given. Company getting richer rarely automatically translates to higher salaries. So employee, if the economy is strong, should advocate for as high income taxes as possible, because that one of the very few ways that the money in the economy flows from the rich to the poor (with a detour through governments, which are poor nowadays anyway, perpetually indebted to the rich).