Clinton G. Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar) & Shelley Welton (Penn), Luxury, Pigouvian, Sin, Oh My: A Politically Agreeable Carbon Tax, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 1755 (Dec. 2, 2024):

Policymakers and commentators mostly treat economic inequality and climate change as distinct and unrelated challenges. In contrast, the public has been taking a less siloed view: Kim Kardashian, Jeff Bezos, and Kylie Jenner have all received blowback, often on social media, for their consumption that produces carbon emissions. Most recently, critics berated Taylor Swift for the massive carbon emissions caused by her private jet use, arguing that her actions belie her everywoman political orientation. The climate change implications of the lifestyles of the rich and famous are starting to permeate the public consciousness.

The tax system offers some obvious mechanisms to discourage the carbon emissions that are causing climate change and to prevent income inequality by redistributing resources. But even as the severity of both problems has risen over the past quarter century, tax policies to address each have largely suffered similar fates in the halls of Congress, and federal tax policy overall has become less progressive. Efforts to enact a broad-based carbon tax or cap-and-trade regime have failed, and various tax expenditures that subsidize carbon emissions have been quietly woven into the tax code, including, for example, bending the rules to facilitate deductible private jet experiences, as Harrison Richards recently detailed in Tax Notes.

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