Good point.

Already Michael Caine and Andrew Lloyd Weber have said they are considering moving to the U.S. if the top U.K. rate goes overs 50%. My point, of course, is not diminshed by the fact that citizens of other countries are more inclined to escape high taxation than are citizens of America.

Taxes, like all other high ticket costs, are a consideration in determining where one chooses to live and work.

I believe that the more high-income earners and job creators we have in America the better for our economy. We should give these folks tax incentives to moveto America rather than give the high-income earners and job creators we already have here a reason to flee.

Your attempt to connect Pakistan’s political, ethnic and religious turmoil with low taxes is so great a logical leap that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It’s like a mother who asks her disobedient seven year old child, “why can’t you be more like the neighbor’s dog.”

After all, the article notes that the phenomenon is especially prominent in the UK, where taxes are considerably higher than they are here. The top income rate of 50% applies to income over 150,000 pounds (equivalent to roughly $230,000 in current dollars) and they have a VAT as well, currently at 17% but set to rise to 20% in January 2011.

Of course, there are some countries where the rich pay very little in taxes–check out this story on Pakistan, for example, but it doesn’t sound like a very politically or economically stable or attractive place to put down roots–
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/07/18/world/asia/1247468421481/tax-free-living-in-pakistan.html?scp=3&sq=pakistan%20tax&st=cse

In fact, the US tax burden is quite a bit lower than most of the other OECD countries. See this study:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=1000976