Preferred Individual Top Income Tax Rate

[RI]

Like most economic issues, I try not to weigh in unless I have seen empirics/regressions/econometrics and understand the theory behind it. I am not yet to this point on taxes. What I can say is that basing tax rates on personal whimsies or some misplaced moral sentiment is both short-sighted and destined for many unintended consequences. I neither believe inherently in soaking the rich nor defeating some tyrannically vampiric government, though I believe that the income tax is an important and necessary tool at the government's disposal. There are many variables to consider, from the width of the brackets to their height to their multiplicity (though I intuitively prefer an upward-sloping continuous function rather than a piece-wise one for a number of reasons), not to mention various different institutions levying said taxes.

If someone like Beet or phnkrocket or ag want to chime in, I'm all ears, but forgive me if I disregard the notions of non-economists or at least of non-quantitatively-based individuals.