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.Here again, further analysis demonstrates that this is by no means obvious.Some may argue that uncertainty benefits the taxpayer, for it makes the requirement more flexible and permits bribery of the tax collector.This benefits the taxpayer to the extent that the price of the bribe is less than the tax that he would otherwise have to pay.Furthermore, there is no way of establishing long-range certainty, for the tax rates may be changed by the government at any time.In the long run, certainty of taxation is an impossible goal.A similar argument may be levelled against the view that taxes “should” be difficult to evade.If a tax is onerous and unjust, evasion might be highly beneficial to the economy, and moral to boot.Thus, none of these supposedly self-evident canons of taxation is a canon at all.From some ethical points of view they are correct, from others they are incorrect.Economics cannot decide between them.C.DISTRIBUTION OF THE TAX BURDENUp to this point, we have been discussing taxation as it is levied on any given individual or firm.Now we must turn to another aspect: the distribution of the burden of taxes among the people in the economy.Most of the search for “justice” in taxation has involved the problem of the “just distribution” of this burden.Various proposed canons of justice will be discussed in this section, followed by analysis of the economic effects of tax distribution.(1) Uniformity of Treatment(a) Equality before the law: tax exemptionUniformity of treatment has been upheld as an ideal by almost all writers.This ideal is supposed to be implicit in the concept of “equality before the law,” which is best expressed in the phrase, “Like to be treated alike.” To most economists this ideal has seemed self-evident, and the only problems considered have been the practical ones of defining exactly when one person is “like” someone else (problems that, we shall see below, are insuperable).All these economists adopt the goal of uniformity regardless of what principle of “likeness” they may hold.Thus, the man who believes that everyone should be taxed in accordance with his “ability to pay” also believes that everyone with the same ability should be taxed equally; he who believes that each should be taxed proportionately to his income also holds that everyone with the same income should pay the same tax; etc.In this way, the ideal of uniformity pervades the literature on taxation.Yet this canon is by no means obvious, for it seems clear that the justice of equality of treatment depends first of all on the justice of the treatment itself.Suppose, for example, that Jones, with his retinue, proposes to enslave a group of people.Are we to maintain that “justice” requires that each be enslaved equally? And suppose that someone has the good fortune to escape.Are we to condemn him for evading the equality of justice meted out to his fellows? It is obvious that equality of treatment is no canon of justice whatever.If a measure is unjust, then it is just that it have as little general effect as possible.Equality of unjust treatment can never be upheld as an ideal of justice.Therefore, he who maintains that a tax be imposed equally on all must first establish the justice of the tax itself.Many writers denounce tax exemptions and levy their fire at the tax-exempt, particularly those instrumental in obtaining the exemptions for themselves.These writers include those advocates of the free market who treat a tax exemption as a special privilege and attack it as equivalent to a subsidy and therefore inconsistent with the free market.Yet an exemption from taxation or any other burden is not equivalent to a subsidy.There is a key difference.In the latter case a man is receiving a special grant of privilege wrested from his fellowmen; in the former he is escaping a burden imposed on other men.Whereas the one is done at the expense of his fellowmen, the other is not.For in the former case, the grantee is participating in the acquisition of loot; in the latter, he escapes payment of tribute to the looters.To blame him for escaping is equivalent to blaming the slave for fleeing his master.It is clear that if a certain burden is unjust, blame should be levied, not on the man who escapes the burden, but on the man or men who impose it in the first place.If a tax is in fact unjust, and some are exempt from it, the hue and cry should not be to extend the tax to everyone, but on the contrary to extend the exemption to everyone.The exemption itself cannot be considered unjust unless the tax or other burden is first established as just.Thus, uniformity of treatment per se cannot be established as a canon of justice.A tax must first be proven just; if it is unjust, then uniformity is simply imposition of general injustice, and exemption is to be welcomed.Since the very fact of taxation is an interference with the free market, it is particularly incongruous and incorrect for advocates of a free market to advocate uniformity of taxation.One of the major sources of confusion for economists and others who are in favor of the free market is that the free society has often been defined as a condition of “equality before the law,” or as “special privilege for none.” As a result, many have transferred these concepts to an attack on tax exemptions as a “special privilege” and a violation of the principle of “equality before the law.” As for the latter concept, it is, again, hardly a criterion of justice, for this depends on the justice of the law or “treatment” itself.It is this alleged justice, rather than equality, which is the primary feature of the free market.In fact, the free society is far better described by some such phrase as “equality of rights to defend person and property” or “equality of liberty” rather than by the vague, misleading expression “equality before the law [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]