How much do taxes impede capital accumulation and the recovery of top income shares? Just to illustrate the order of magnitude, assume a simple case with two groups of income earners; a top group that derives half their income from capital (the rate of return is assumed to be 5%) and the other half from wages, whereas the rest only have a wage income. Initially the income share of the top group is 15% of all income, and their consumption is such that their capital stock remains unchanged. These assumptions are, of course, not calibrated to fit any particular economy, but the numbers fit an approximate representation of the relationship between the top percentile and the rest of the population, both in terms of the importance of capital (with a broad interpretation) and the income share around World War II.