Tax Law, Religion, and Justice

Tax Law, Religion, and Justice

Author: Allen Calhoun

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2021-03-08

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1000356531

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This book asks why tax policy is both attracted to and repelled by the idea of justice. Accepting the invitation of economist Henry Simons to acknowledge that tax justice is a theological concept, the work explores theological doctrines of taxation to answer the presenting question. The overall message of the book is that taxation is an instrument of justice, but only when taxes take into account multiple goods in society: the requirements of the government, the property rights of society’s members, and the material needs of the poor. It is argued that this answer to the presenting question is a theological and ethical answer in that it derives from the insistence of Christian thinkers that tax policy take into account material human need (necessitas). Without the necessitas component of the tax balance, tax systems end up honoring only one of the three components of the tax equation and cease to reflect a coherent idea of justice. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of tax law, economics, theology, and history.


Tax Us If You Can

Tax Us If You Can

Author: Tax Justice Network-Africa

Publisher: Fahamu/Pambazuka

Published: 2011-10-20

Total Pages: 95

ISBN-13: 0857490427

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This short introduction to issues of tax justice explains the meaning and causes of tax injustice and offers options for a better future. Providing insight into the specific failures of Africa s tax systemand the associated problems of capital flight, tax evasion, tax avoidance, and tax competitionthis book explores the role of governments, parliaments, and taxpayers, and asks how stakeholders can help achieve tax justice. Arguing that tax revenues are essential for establishing independent states of free citizens, it demonstrates how the tax consensus promoted by multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, has influenced tax policy in Africa and led to a reduction in government revenues in many countries. "


Tax Justice and Tax Law

Tax Justice and Tax Law

Author: Dominic de Cogan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-11-12

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 1509935010

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Most people would agree that tax systems ought to be 'just', and perhaps a great deal more just than they are at present. What is more difficult is to agree on what tax justice is. This book considers a range of different approaches to, and ideas about the nature of tax justice and covers areas such as: - imbalances in international tax arrangements that deprive developing countries of revenues from natural resources and allow wealthy taxpayers to use tax havens; - protests against governments and large business; - attempts to influence policy through more technical means such as the OECD's Base Erosion and Profits Shifting project; - interpersonal matters, such as the ways in which tax systems disadvantage women and minorities; - the application of wider philosophical or economic theories to tax systems. The purpose of the book is not to iron out these underlying differences into a grand theory, but rather to gain a more precise understanding of how and why we disagree about tax justice. In doing so the editors are assisted by a stellar cast of contributors from four continents, with a wide variety of views and experiences but a common interest in this central question of how to agree and disagree about tax justice. This is, of course, not only an intellectual exercise but also a necessary precursor to achieving real-world change.


Philosophical Explorations of Justice and Taxation

Philosophical Explorations of Justice and Taxation

Author: Helmut P. Gaisbauer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-01-20

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 3319134582

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This volume presents philosophical contributions examining questions of the grounding and justification of taxation and different types of taxes such as inheritance, wealth, consumption or income tax in relation to justice and the concept of a just society. The chapters cover the different levels at which the discussion on taxation and justice takes place: On the principal level, chapters investigate the justification and grounding of taxation as such and the role taxation plays and should play in the design of justice, be it for a just society or a just world order. On a more concrete level, chapters present discussions of these general reflections in more depth and examine different types of taxation, tax systems and their design and implementation. On an applied level, chapters discuss certain specific taxes, such as wealth and inheritance taxes, and examine whether or not a certain tax should be favored and for what reasons as well as why it is just to target certain kinds of assets or income. Finally, this volume contains chapters that discuss the central issue of international and global taxation and their relation to global justice.


Tax Law and Racial Economic Justice

Tax Law and Racial Economic Justice

Author: Andre L. Smith

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-06-03

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1498503667

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No study of Black people in America can be complete without considering how openly discriminatory tax laws helped establish a racial caste system in the United States, how they were designed to exclude blacks from lucrative markets and the voting franchise, and how tax laws extracted and redistributed vast sums of black wealth. Not only was slavery nearly a 100% tax on black labor, so too was Jim Crow apartheid and tax laws specified the peculiar institution as “negro slavery.” The first instances of affirmative action in the United States were tax laws designed to attract white men to the South. The nineteenth-century Federal Tariff indirectly redistributed perhaps a majority of the profits from slavery from the South to the North and is the principle reason the Confederate states seceded. The only constitutional amendment obtained by the Civil Rights Movement is the Twenty-Sixth Amendment abolishing poll taxes in federal elections. Blending traditional legal theory, neoclassical economics, and a pan-African view of history, these six interrelated essays on race and taxes demonstrate that, even in today’s supposedly post-racial society, there is no area of human activity where racial dynamics are absent.


Tax Justice

Tax Justice

Author: Joseph J. Thorndike

Publisher: The Urban Insitute

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780877667070

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"As inequalities in wealth and income have widened over the past two decades, renewed attention has been focused on the question of 'tax justice'--i.e., to what extent the tax system should be use to redress socioeconomic disparities. This collection brings together leading scholars from law, history, and economics to examine the question from several angles." Kirk J. Stark [back cover].


The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay

The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay

Author: Emmanuel Saez

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1324002735

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America’s runaway inequality has an engine: our unjust tax system. Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have had their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice presents a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation, written by two economists who revolutionized the study of inequality. Eschewing anecdotes and case studies, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman offer a comprehensive view of America’s tax system, based on new statistics covering all taxes paid at all levels of government. Their conclusion? For the first time in more than a century, billionaires now pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Blending history and cutting-edge economic analysis, and writing in lively and jargon-free prose, Saez and Zucman dissect the deliberate choices (and sins of indecision) that have brought us to today: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax avoidance industry, and the spiral of tax competition among nations. With clarity and concision, they explain how America turned away from the most progressive tax system in history to embrace policies that only serve to compound the wealth of a few. But The Triumph of Injustice is much more than a laser-sharp analysis of one of the great political and intellectual failures of our time. Saez and Zucman propose a visionary, democratic, and practical reinvention of taxes, outlining reforms that can allow tax justice to triumph in today’s globalized world and democracy to prevail over concentrated wealth. A pioneering companion website allows anyone to evaluate proposals made by the authors, and to develop their own alternative tax reform at taxjusticenow.org.


The Myth of Ownership

The Myth of Ownership

Author: Liam B. Murphy

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0195176561

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In a capitalist economy, taxes are more than a method of payment for government and public services. They are the most significant instrument by which the political system puts into practice a conception of economic justice. Yet there has been little effort to bring together important recent philosophical work on justice with vigorous debates about tax policy going on in national politics and public policy circles, in economics and law. The Myth of Ownership bridges this gap, offering the first book to explore tax policy from the standpoint of contemporary moral and political philosophy. Book jacket.


Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights

Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights

Author: Philip G. Alston

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-04-11

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 0190882247

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For the first time, Human Rights and Tax in an Unequal World brings together works by human rights and tax law experts, to illustrate the linkages between the two fields and to reveal their mutual relevance in tackling economic, social, and political inequalities. Against the backdrop of systemic corporate tax avoidance, the widespread use of tax havens, persistent pressures to embrace austerity policies, and growing gaps between the rich and poor, this book encourages readers to understand fiscal policy as human rights policy, with profound consequences for the wellbeing of citizens around the world. The essays collected examine where the foundational principles of tax law and human rights law intersect and diverge; discuss the cross-border nature and human rights impacts of abusive practices like tax avoidance and evasion; question the role of states in bringing transparency and accountability to tax policies and practices; highlight the responsibility of private sector actors for the consequences of tax laws; and critically evaluate certain domestic tax rules through the lens of equality and non-discrimination. The contributing scholars and practitioners explore how an international human rights framework can anchor debates around international tax reform and domestic fiscal consolidation in existing state obligations. They address what human rights law requires of state tax policies, and what a state's tax laws and loopholes mean for the enjoyment of human rights within and outside its borders. Ultimately, tax and human rights both turn on the relationship between the individual and the state, and thus both fields face crises as the social contract frays and populist, illiberal regimes are on the rise.