Arthur Laffer's idea, that lowering taxes could increase revenues, was logically correct. If tax rates are high enough, then people will go to such lengths to avoid them that cutting taxes can increase revenues. What he was wrong about was in thinking that income tax rates were already so high in the 1970s that cutting them would raise revenues.

If no estate tax is imposed, capital gains taxes can be avoided indefinitely.

The wealth in many large estates has never been taxed because it is largely in the form of unrealized - therefore untaxed - capital gains.

Richard Thaler Quotes