The economic arguments for and against a wealth tax
The economic arguments for and against a wealth tax
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支持和反对财富税的经济论据
DOI：
10.1111/1475-5890.12288
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发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
7.3
通讯作者：
Adam S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Adam S
撇开现实中至关重要的实用性和政治因素，本文提出了一个问题，即财富税在原则上何时会成为税收体系的理想组成部分。征收一次性财富税的理由很简单。如果它是出乎意料的，而且是可信的一次性的——这是实践中的一个重大挑战——这将是增加收入的有效方法，可以用来解决现有的财富不平等问题。这种税收是否可取取决于它是否被认为是公平的，理性的人对此会有不同的看法。每年征收财富税，既会影响未来的财富积累，也会影响现有的财富，但就没那么简单了。它需要解释，为什么对同样的财富每年征税——惩罚那些储蓄者——比在财富获得（和/或被花掉）时对所有财富来源一次性征税更好。这种情况可以基于以下微妙的论点：为什么对财富征税可能有助于缓解再分配和工作激励之间的权衡；如果持有财富而不是花掉财富会让持有者受益或伤害他人，那么征收财富税也可能是合理的。这些理论上的论点可能在原则上证明了对财富征税是合理的，尽管我们几乎没有判断适当水平的依据，因此只能获得部分理论上的好处。在实践中，可实现的收益是否超过不完善的财富税的成本，这是值得怀疑的。有充分的理由从根本上改革我们目前对财富来源/用途征税的方式；这包括改革资本所得税，以便对高回报适当征税。每年征收财富税将是一个糟糕的替代方案。但如果税收仍然不完善，而且对财富税的反应不会影响其他税收（如收入、支出和遗赠税）的收入，那么增加财富税可能会有好处，从而使收入来源多样化，防止任何一种税收过高——尽管这必须与征收另一种税收带来的额外行政负担进行权衡。
This paper asks when a wealth tax would, in principle, be a desirable part of the tax system, setting aside the practicalities and politics that would be crucial in reality. The case for a one‐off wealth tax is simple. If it were unexpected and credibly one‐off – a major challenge in practice – this would be an efficient way to raise revenue and could be used to address existing wealth inequality. Whether such a tax is desirable hinges on whether it is considered fair, about which reasonable people will differ. Making the case for an annual wealth tax, which would affect future wealth accumulation as well as existing wealth, is less straightforward. It requires explaining why it is better to tax the same wealth every year – penalising those who save – rather than raising the same revenue by taxing all sources of wealth once when they are received (and/or when they are spent). Such a case can be made based on subtle arguments for why taxing wealth might help to ease the trade‐off between redistribution and work incentives; and a wealth tax might also be justified if holding on to wealth, rather than spending it, benefits the holder or harms others. These theoretical arguments probably justify some taxation of wealth in principle, though we have little basis for judging the appropriate level, so only part of the theoretical benefit could be attained. It is questionable whether the achievable benefits outweigh the costs of an imperfect wealth tax in practice.There are strong reasons to radically reform how we currently tax the sources/uses of wealth; this includes reforming capital income taxes in order to properly tax high returns. An annual wealth tax would be a poor substitute for doing that. But to the extent that taxes remain imperfect and that responses to a wealth tax would not affect revenue from other taxes (such as on income, expenditure and bequests), there may be a benefit to adding a wealth tax in order to diversify sources of revenue and prevent any one tax getting too high – though that must be weighed against the extra administrative burdens of having another tax.
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