What really riles me about taxation is that generally people who work longer/harder/smarter to increase their net worth get taxed far more than those who increase it because they have a spare 50k they put into the stock market.
For a just society we should tax working far less than taxing capital and dividend gains, not the opposite.
From "Wall Street" (1987) [a work of fiction which I have no reason to take at face value regarding precise statistics, but nevertheless]:
"The richest one percent of this country owns half the country's wealth: 5 trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds of it comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulation to widows and idiot sons and what I do -- stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. Ninety percent of the American people have little or no net worth. I create nothing; I own. We make the rules, Buddy, the news, war, peace, famine, upheaval; the cost of a paper clip. (picking one up) We pull the rabbit out of the hat while everybody else sits around their whole life wondering how we did it..."
As long as they aren't in a tax bracket over 100%, then, "work[ing] longer / harder / smarter," in fact does result in increasing their net worth. What's the problem, then? That we are asking them to contribute to promoting the general welfare?
The problem is that when someone works longer/harder/smarter for 1k, they get more taken in tax than if someone gambles on the stock market and makes 1k. That's the wrong way round.
For a just society we should tax working far less than taxing capital and dividend gains, not the opposite.