Governments see reduction in tax income and GDP and repeal taxes. In UK: Signal "mansion" tax on properties valued above X price to collect recurring Y pounds total tax. Market adjusts valuations based on probability of tax. Number of houses still worth at least X now diminishes. Now cannot collect recurring Y pounds. "Mansion" tax delayed.

You have this complex system that has reached some sort of relative equilibrium based on say a set S of ten sorts of tax rates, along with a set F of factors (size millions), with the government's tax revenue R being one of those outputs. Then some guy in the government called G signals to the government and public that he can increase R by X by fiddling with a member of S, or maybe adding a member to S (of size say ten).

Is G stupid, or does he just lean towards retaining the public's affection, his relatively low salary, potential under the table payments and whatever networking opportunities his job provides? I lean towards the latter.