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Legitimate Tax Structures: Lessons from the Past

  • Enrico Colombatto EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 15, 2023

Abstract

Today’s views and analyses about taxation are dominated by the social-welfare approach based on various categories of utilitarianism, most notably those developed by the optimal-tax literature. By contrast, this paper focuses on the ethical foundations of taxation and analyses a tradition that harks back to the 17th century. In particular, we emphasise the notion of legitimate taxation in the history of economic thought from the libertarian, the classical-liberal and socialist perspectives. By means of this very notion, we define the essence of a desirable tax structure and draw conclusions in regard to today’s tax policies.


Corresponding author: Enrico Colombatto, Università di Torino, Turin, Italy, E-mail:

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Received: 2022-08-03
Accepted: 2023-10-14
Published Online: 2023-11-15

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