Adam Smith
The 18th-century economist and philosopher Adam Smith attempted to systematize the rules that should govern a rational system of taxation. In The Wealth of Nations (Book V, chapter 2) he set down four general canons:
I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.…
II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person.…
III. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.…
IV. Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.…
Although they need to be reinterpreted from time to time, these principles retain remarkable relevance. From the first can be derived some leading views about what is fair in the distribution of tax burdens among taxpayers. These are: (1) the belief that taxes should be based on the individual’s ability to pay, known as the ability-to-pay principle, and (2) the benefit principle, the idea that there should be some equivalence between what the individual pays and the benefits he subsequently receives from governmental activities. The fourth of Smith’s canons can be interpreted to underlie the emphasis many economists place on a tax system that does not interfere with market decision making, as well as the more obvious need to avoid complexity and corruption.
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