Simpler, would be a straight ten percent taxation on whatever you earn - the moral being that ten per cent of a million feels as horrid to somebody earning that as does ten percent of ten grand, if that happens to be where you're at.
I firmly believe - know for a fact from from the small group of healthy earners I know/knew (my generation is on the extinction list) that money sitting in the bank is not thought the clever option - especially today. You invest it as cleverly as you know how, and try to make it grow. Investing it usually means into companies on the stock market, big players who in turn provide employment and, in good times, a reasonable return. Of course, the old advice holds: don't invest what you can't afford to lose.
In Spain, the reasoning is slightly different - at least at more humble levels closer to my own - where faith in governments and pensions is slim, to be generous about it. The objective is often to find enough dosh to enable the purchase of a second house or apartment with the intention of letting it out to provide the income old folks can mostly no longer earn. But even there, the taxman has spies and ears everywhere.
Rob
