High income tax rates do not &quot;discourage greed&quot;, they merely cause it to manifest in different ways. Compensation structures in high tax jurisdictions like Europe reflect this, with myriad forms of lavish compensation for corporate executives that are technically not income, much more so than in locales where the taxes encourage people to simply write a check. An argument could be made that direct cash compensation in tax jurisdictions where that makes sense has the benefit of being a much more transparent kind of compensation.<p>Tax rates don&#x27;t change human nature, they merely change incentives.