Theories of Distributive Justice and Limitations on Taxation: What Rawls Demands from Tax Systems

Abstract

Murphy and Nagel’s critique prevents endorsement of specific tax policies in the name of justice, but invites a different, narrower inquiry: whether a particular tax system (or even tax provision) precludes a just economic arrangement in society. For example, if the tax system consisted of confiscating all the property of the poorest 20% of the population, no set of remaining government policies could provide an overall economic distribution that liberal egalitarians would consider just. Similarly, the injustice in a tax system that required only black people to pay income taxes could not be cured by any other combination of government institutions. This Essay attempts to map out how such an inquiry would be conducted in light of Rawls

Publication
Fordham Law Review