Because a CEO with happy shareholders has more power. The shareholder value thing is a sop, and sometimes a dangerous one.

We keep trying to progressively tax money in the US to reduce the social imbalance. We can’t figure out how to tax power and the people with power like it that way. If you have power you can get money. But it’s also relatively straightforward to arrange to keep the money that you have.

But they don’t really need to.

> We keep trying to progressively tax money in the US to reduce the social imbalance.

The former does not lead to the latter.

I mean...what you say is not, in the face of it, false; however...

For the past few decades, the ways and the degree to which we have been genuinely trying (at the government level) to "progressively tax money" in the US have been failing and falling, respectively.

If we were genuinely serious about the kind of progressive taxation you're talking about, capital gains taxes (and other kinds of taxes on non-labor income) would be much, much higher than standard income tax. As it stands, the reverse is true.

Look into the Laffer curve if you want to know why tax rates are what they are. Basically, using tax avoidance strategies have both a cost (accountants and lawyers) and a risk. Making the tax rate too high and the percentage of the wealthy that choose to utilize tax avoidance strategies increases (also the aggressiveness of those strategies increases). The change in this rate forms a curve with a maximum. There is a tax rate that maximizes tax revenue. That rate is far less than 100%. In fact, US tax rates are probably pretty near those Laffer maximums.

Please keep in mind that at these maximums, taxes are still progressive just probably not as much as you want. You really want to make taxes more progressive? Either get rid of SS or make it taxable on all income. SS contributions are by far the least progressive part of the tax code.

I frankly don't believe this. (edit for clarity: the proposition that our current rates are highly likely to be towards the top end of what's feasible, not the existence of such a curve)

It's been cited as unshakable truth many times, including just before places like Washington State significantly raised their top tax brackets—and saw approximately zero rich people leave.

There's a lot of widely-believed economic theory underlying our current practice that's based on extremely shaky ground.

As for how SS taxes are handled, I'm 100% in agreement with you.

Rich people don't have to leave a state to use tax avoidance strategies. I live in Washington state. The recent state tax increases have reduced total state tax revenue. That's the point of the Laffer curve, tax rate increases result in less tax revenue. Now exactly the shape of the curve, that's hard to say. But you are obviously past the maximum when a rate increase reduces tax revenue.

PS The last several CA (I used to live there) tax increases resulted in decreased tax revenue too.