segunda-feira, 21 de março de 2005

The Amount vs. the Form of Taxation

"We conclude with the observation that there has been far too much concentration on the form, the type of taxation, and not enough on its total amount. The result has been endless tinkering with kinds of taxes, coupled with neglect of a far more critical question: how muchof the social product should be siphoned away from the producers? Or, how much income should be retained by the producers and how much income and resources coercively diverted for the benefit of non-producers?

(...) Even more egregious was an early doctrine of another group of supposed free-market advocates, the supply-siders. In their original Laffer-curve manifestation, now happily consigned to the dustbin of history, the supply-siders maintained that the tax rate that maximizes tax revenue is the "voluntary" rate, and a rate that should be diligently pursued. It was never pointed out in what sense such a tax rate is "voluntary," or what in the world the concept of "voluntary" has to do with taxation in the first place. Much less did the supply-siders in their Lafferite form ever instruct us why we must all uphold inaximizing government revenue as our beau ideal. Surely, for free-market proponents, one might think that minimizing government depredation of the private product would be a bit more appealing" The Consumption Tax: A Critique By Murray N. Rothbard

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