Abstract
This chapter attempts to consider some of the major moral issues involved in the imposition of taxation. It assumes prima facie that the rationale nowadays for a government imposing taxation derives from its responsibility to raise revenue for providing public goods, redistributing income/wealth to those who are in need or less well-off, promoting social and economic welfare, promoting economic stability, and creating a sound infrastructure for the development of business; and possibly, promoting fiscal harmonisation with other countries. These ideas suggest that the provision of public goods and services paid for by tax revenue inherently constitutes the moral basis for imposing taxation. The chapter goes on to examine definitions of ‘tax’ and ‘morality’, noting the development of morality as concept that changes over time, often subject to increased scientific knowledge, and continues by considering in depth the link between property and taxation, examining property rights, the concept of the ‘social contract’ and natural rights, the meaning of private property, and the idea of ‘tax as theft’—looking at in this latter context the ideas of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, together with libertarian and counter-libertarian arguments. The chapter then considers further the moral underpinning for the process of raising taxes and their use, examining in detail the ideas of Green (J Religious Ethics 12(2):146–161, 1984). The final sections offer some other possible viewpoints and concluding remarks.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter explores in more depth ideas broached earlier in a more general overview of the morality of taxation (see Frecknall-Hughes 2017).
- 2.
- 3.
Basing tax so as to fund public goods/services on a populace’s willingness to pay for the benefits received (the benefit principle), is generally attributed to Knut Wicksell and Erik Lindahl of the Stockholm school of economic thought, but is implicit in, for example, the ideas expressed much earlier in Part 2 of Paine’s 1792 Rights of Man, where he discusses in detail the use of tax revenues (in terms of paying the armed services, funding government administration expenses, pensions, children’s education and various kinds of poor reliefs) and how that may be raised—arguably one of the first expositions of the precise (social) uses of taxation (see the discussion in Frecknall-Hughes 2007).
- 4.
The following example is taken verbatim from Frecknall-Hughes (2014, 5).
- 5.
The most recent review of the UK tax system.
- 6.
There are several taxes, such as the Christian tithe and the Islamic zakat, which are paid to religious bodies, often voluntarily, although certain countries allow religious bodies to assess tithes.
- 7.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights do not, however, recognise property rights.
- 8.
See Waldron (1996, 2011) for an exposition of property rights from a legal and philosophical point of view. While there is no scope in this chapter to consider the development of property rights and law, these are particular to individual nations and societies and have developed differently. Many different philosophers have considered property issues, for example, Plato, Aristotle, Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Smith, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Bentham, Mill, Nozick and Rawls, as Waldron (1996, 11) comments.
- 9.
See Frecknall-Hughes and Oats (2007, 2004) for a discussion of scutage and other medieval taxes. It is notable that the estates of persons in England and Wales who die intestate and without heirs still revert to the Crown or the Duchies of Cornwall or Lancaster (both royal duchies), depending on the place in which a deceased person has resided.
- 10.
There are different forms of this, as the concept was espoused by many different thinkers, such as Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Rousseau and Kant.
- 11.
See Finn (2011, 494), who comments that Aquinas endorses “personal ownership because it is efficient but, at the same time, insists on the ‘common use’ of property, because in creation God intends that the material goods of the earth meet everyone’s needs. This teaching has been reaffirmed and extended institutionally by all of the modern papal social encyclicals. Pope John Paul II clearly advocated governments raising taxes to ensure, for example, ‘in every case the necessary minimum support of the unemployed worker’”, citing John Paul II, Centesimus Annus 15.
- 12.
Cap. 13, lec. 1, ad 13:6, following Meredith (2008, 43) and endnote 4, on 54.
- 13.
Per Meredith (2008, 43) and endnote 5, on 54, in a letter from Aquinas to the Duchess of Brabant.
- 14.
Cap. 13, lec. 1, ad 13:6, following Meredith (2008, 43) and endnote 4, on 54.
- 15.
Citing In Romanos, cap. 13, lec. 1, ad 13:7, and Summa Theologia, II–II, Q. 62, art. 7, responsio.
- 16.
- 17.
This argument, however, does not consider the difference between ‘ownership’ and ‘jurisdiction’.
- 18.
Meredith’s comments (2008, 44) that Aquinas’s vision of just taxation does not include “any notion of a duty on the part of the prince to direct tax revenues to provision for the physical needs of the poor or to redistribute the wealth of the more affluent members of the community to those of limited means”. He comments further that writers who favour redistribution do not typically engage with Aquinas’s writings. One of the few writers who looks at Aquinas through the lens of distributive justice is Finnis (1998), and Meredith’s article disagrees with Finnis’s interpretation of Aquinas on various aspects associated with redistribution.
- 19.
Green draws a distinction between “negative” freedom and “positive” freedom, with the latter meaning “freedom to achieve one’s ends without being hindered by various natural obstacles or forces, including those within the self” (1984, 149).
- 20.
See later as regards Rawls’s version of distributive justice.
- 21.
The Salvation Army, for example, is second only to the government in the UK in terms of the provision of social services.
- 22.
One of the entries under Taxation in Vitullo-Martin and Moskin (1994, 279).
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Frecknall-Hughes, J. (2020). The Moral Basis for Taxation. In: van Brederode, R. (eds) Ethics and Taxation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0089-3_2
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