Highest Tax Rates

Once my teacher in 10th standard posed this question to me

Guess whats the highest tax rate Indians have paid? and the answer to it was (as far as I remember) in the range of 90-95% which made me (like everone else) wonder why would you earn in the first place?

This question got triggered when I met this guy (think from Sweden) during an exchange programme where I was told that taxes are as high as 40% BUT the difference is the government pays for all the education expenses.

These incidents trigger two questions

1. What are the highest tax rates in the world?

2. Why should we have such high tax rates?

The answer to the first question could be found out thru a simple wiki

Some countries like Angola, Benin, Denmark, Sweden have tax rates as high as 60%. There are several other countries like Belgium, Cuba, Gabon etc… which have tax rates at about 50% which means 50% of the salary you earn… is taken away by the government.

This is a tricky situation. If government can pay for all my basic necessities and cut equivalent tax… Then I would prefer shirking (unless I am very ambitious).