Tax Fairness and Folk Justice

Demonstrates how a serious consideration of 'folk justice' can deepen our understanding of how tax systems function and how they can perhaps be reformed.

Steven M. Sheffrin (Author)

9780521195621, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 October 2013

264 pages, 2 b/w illus. 12 tables
23.1 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'… offers a fresh perspective on many longstanding - and notoriously nettlesome - tax policy questions, and does so in an engaging and accessible style.' Kirk J. Stark, National Tax Journal

Why have Americans severely limited the estate and gift tax - ostensibly targeted at only the very wealthy - but greatly expanded the subsidies to low-wage workers through the Earned Income Tax Credit, now the single largest poverty program in the country? Why do people hate the property tax so much, yet seemingly revolt against it only during periods of economic change? Why are some groups of taxpayers more obedient to the tax authorities than others, even when they face the same enforcement regime? These puzzling questions all revolve around perceptions of tax fairness. Is the public simply inconsistent? A sympathetic and unified explanation for these attitudes is based on understanding the everyday psychology of fairness and how it comes to be applied in taxation. This book demonstrates how a serious consideration of 'folk justice' can deepen our understanding of how tax systems actually function and how they can perhaps be reformed.

Preface
1. Approaching tax fairness
2. The foundations of folk justice
3. Fairness and the property tax
4. Should we redistribute income through taxation?
5. Why do people pay taxes?
6. Desert, equity theory, and taxation
7. Concluding perspectives.

Subject Areas: Taxation [KFFD1], Macroeconomics [KCB], Politics & government [JP]