The Tax Justice Network is a lot of busy people keen on extracting more taxes from all round the planet:

… our approach does not fit easily into either of the old political categories of left and right. We do not argue generally for high or low taxes (that is for voters to decide) but we note the often better human development outcomes in higher-tax countries and oppose the demonisation of tax that is fashionable in some circles.

What we do support is progressive and equitable taxation, which is what voters around the world have chosen. We wish to see nations’ sovereignty restored, so that electorates are given back the power to get the tax systems they vote for. To this end we advocate much stronger co-operation between states on tax and regulation.

One must admire their bravura claim to be beyond conventional political categorisation, while noting that in almost every respect the policies they want are heavy Leftist/collectivist in form and substance.

They note the the often better human development outcomes in higher-tax countries as if to suggest that the higher the tax the better the development outcomes. Maybe, just maybe, the causation is the other way round – one consequence of better-developed human outcomes is higher taxes (bigger cake, more for everyone)?

The following paragraph looks pretty scary to me:

We oppose a financial and legalistic approach to tax, which focuses exclusively on the boundary between what is legal (tax avoidance) and what is illegal (tax evasion.) Instead we favour an accountability-driven approach, differentiating between what is responsible, and what is not. A responsible approach sees tax not as a cost to a company to be avoided, but like a dividend: a distribution out of profits to all stakeholders. Companies do not make profit merely by using investors’ capital. They also use the societies in which they operate — whether the physical infrastructure provided by the state, the people the state has educated, or the legal infrastructure that allows companies to protect their rights. Tax is the return due on this investment by society from which companies benefit.

Hard to work out what this might mean in practice. It seems to require the abolition of private property – veryone is a stakeholder in everyone else’s business.

Plus either a tax arrangement is lawful or it isn’t. How else is one meant to know where one stands?

Perhaps one isn’t?

And look at the bold collectivist idea of the TJN that it is the ‘state’ which provides education and different sorts of infrastructure. The clear implication of their approach is that we and are efforts are all owned by, or in some way indebted to,  the state, not the other way round.

Anyway, this caught my eye:

Tax is the link between state and citizen, and tax revenues are the lifeblood of the social contract.

Needless to say, the state comes first and the citizen second in this formulation.

But what about the social contract point?

We do not hear much about it these days, perhaps because the idea of a ‘contract’ implies some sort of explicit agreement to what happens. Yet so many things government does at all levels go far beyond what citizens might want or accept if (as all too rarely happens) they are given the chance to offer a view.

Nevertheless, the financial/economic dramas are causing us all to look at first principles, so maybe the idea of the social contract too needs dusting off.

Thus, a question:

If I work hard and honestly and so create wealth, under what circumstances can/should that wealth be taken from me by force in the form of taxation to be handed over to others who do not work as hard or as honestly as I do?

If there are three people on a desert island and one is stronger/smarter and more productive than the other two, what exactly is the Social Contract? They take a majority vote to work a bit but otherwise sit back and enjoy the fruits of his efforts. Is that … slavery?

Fine while it lasts, while the most productive one agrees to let them benefit from his hard work.

But what if he tires of being exploited and stops working quite so hard?

What if he shrugs?