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Theories Of Distributive Justice And Limitations On Taxation: What Rawls Demands From Tax Systems Symposium - Rawls And The Law: Panel Vi: Property, Taxation, And Distributive Justice, Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay attempts to map out how such an inquiry would be conducted in light of Rawls. Rather than searching in theories of justice for required precepts of taxation, we might more fruitfully ask what constraints, if any, a particular theory of justice imposes on the tax system. Application of such an approach to Rawls's theory of justice may explain his apparent preference for a flat consumptionbased tax. This preference is otherwise quite puzzling in light of much of what Rawls wrote about economic justice, and might lead us to expect him to endorse a progressive income tax. If Rawls's …