 Taxes for which state?. Chapter 11 in Tax Tyranny, 2020, pp 163-176 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: Taxes exist to finance public expenditures. Therefore, in order to evaluate a tax system it may be useful to add an evaluation of public expenditures. There is a traditional distinction of state functions, namely the allocation, redistribution, and stabilization of resources. But these supposed roles of a state are debatable: There are no resources to allocate, redistribute, or stabilize since resources are created by individuals and belong legitimately to them, and states get resources by using coercion. There is, however, a justification of state interventionism, namely the existence of “public goods†, which are goods and services desired by all citizens and which would not exist without state activities (for instance national defense). But most state activities in reality do not correspond to this definition. Moreover, if it was true that states produce “public goods†they should not fear the competition of private producers; in fact they impose public monopolies by coercion, and if a good or a service is thus produced only by a state it is wrongly called a “public good†. Keywords: Economics and Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:19263_11 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.