High tax-rates erode their own bases, and thereby adversely affect tax-revenues. This general idea, which is referred to as the Laffer Curve, can be traced back to Kautilya's famous treatise on Economics, Arthasastra, and even before that, to the ancient Indian book of laws called the Manusmriti. This paper considers the basic tenets of taxation prescribed in these texts and attempts to interpr...

An expression for the La er curve for high incomes is derived, assuming a constant Pareto parameter and elasticity of taxable income. The peak of this La er curve is given by the well-known Saez (2001) expression. Microsimulations using Swedish population data show that the simulated curve matches the theoretically derived La er curve well, suggesting that the analytical expression is not too m...