After the Greens just proposed hammering nurses with extra tax, I believe there are 2 different high income earners:
1 - those that due to scarcity of supply (lack of competition) can charge a high hourly rate/ salary while working 40 hours.
2 - those that are less skilled but earn highly due to significantly longer hours, night shifts, dangerous work, etc.
Number 1 should be taxed higher than number 2 if they earn the exact same wages. More hours, wear and tear on the body, extra costs (paying someone to mow your lawns and clean your house because you have less time to do it, etc), less leisure time/ time to recover, etc shouldn’t be taxed as much as a 40 hour highly paid worker. Looking at it another way, your hours available not working is significantly less (quality of life) which should be compensated for.
This is the nurse issue. But how do you fix this discrepancy?
And then while we’re at it, we should be able to income share between a couple in a family for tax.