Where does the Laffer curve bend?

With the Bush tax cuts due to expire soon and debates about raising top rates further to cut the budget deficit soon to follow, the Laffer curve is bound to come up again. The idea, popularized by economist Arthur Laffer and writer Jude Wanninski in the 1970s and '80s, is simple. Tax rates of zero percent produce no revenue, for obvious reasons. Rates of 100 percent should produce no revenue either, as no one would bother making the money that falls into that bracket knowing it would all be taken away.

Thus, presumably, there is some rate in between the two that maximizes revenue. Go above it and revenue would fall because people would avoid taxes or stop working; go below it and revenue would fall because less money would be taxed.

I decided to ask some tax experts and political activists where, in the current personal income tax, and particularly in the top tax bracket, they think that Laffer curve peaks -- that is, what that revenue-maximizing rate is. The responses were varied, to say the least. Let's start with the experts.

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