Sagit Leviner (SJD Candidate, Michigan) has posted The Vision of a Good Society and the Tax System (or Tax Justice Revisited) on SSRN. The paper won first prize in the 2003 Tannenwald Writing Competition sponsored by the Theodore Tannenwald, Jr. Foundation for Excellence in Tax Scholarship and the American College of Tax Counsel. Here is the abstract:
This paper presents two rationales, one deontological and the other consequential, which, jointly and separately, justify redistributive taxation and the resulting imposition of a greater tax burden on the wealthy. Both rationales are based on a community-oriented rather than an individual-focused view of modern society and are drawn from an analysis of the roles that individual and collective rights and responsibilities ought to play in contemporary tax policy-making.
According to the deontological approach, the wealth belonging to the affluent is not merely the product of their efforts but also results from benefits conferred by social cooperation and good fortune. The paper expands on this argument by suggesting that what ultimately matters in assessing the justness of the tax burden allocation is that all members of the society are guaranteed certain basics that ensure adequate living conditions and represent a fair share of the fruits of social cooperation. Since the pre-tax distribution of resources is so universally unequal, this approach to taxation is sure to result in some form of redistribution.
The second rationale, based on consequential considerations, emphasizes the harmful economic, political and social effects of concentrated wealth and income for modern democracy and promotes the use of the tax system to avoid these effects. This rational suggests that the wealthy, who hold the bulk of concentrated resources and, consequently, the actual means to contribute to redistribution, share a civic and moral obligation to participate in the safeguard of society and fellow citizens by bearing a heavier tax burden than less affluent citizens. The taxing of inherited wealth is offered as the proper target of redistribution.
