I mean I personally think income should be tax free up to a relatively high amount. Like 6 figures, minimum. You're giving up your time, in service of a business which itself is in service of society, you shouldn't have to subtract from your reward for that to give more. The business' taxes should be covering that.

We should be heavily taxing investments, the times when people don't actually do anything themselves but pay for things to be done, with the plan of getting money back and giving as little to those that actually did the work as possible. The business owner gives the minimum to their employees and takes all the excess for themselves.

What's needed is a sliding tax scale where employers benefit from giving out higher mean salaries, not median, such that employees and employers both together benefit from the success of the business. If you pay your employees better, up to or maybe a little above the average income, your business gets taxed less. That's the sort of government incentive we should be having.